I've been collecting numerous facts and links related to external combustion-- I.E., electric-- cars over the past several months, and finally got around to putting them up on this blog.

Notes

• Man-contributed carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is 4.3% total, in entire atmosphere, since man has been on the planet.


• Depending on which study is referenced, from manufacture to life to disposal, external combustion cars are either a tiny percentage worse than internal combustion cars in terms of CO2 "emissions", a dead wash, or a small percentage better. In either extreme, the macro difference in terms of atmospheric composition is tiny, even if the assumption is granted that man-made CO2 "emissions" are actually a problem in the first place, in real-world quantities.


• In the earlier parts of this century, Volkswagen worked on a hybrid-diesel prototype, which got 240 miles per gallon. Volkswagen also sold conventional diesel cars, which got around 50 miles per gallon on the highway, and which cost just a little over 20,000 USD, and where the diesel engines had a life expectancy of nearly 500,000 miles.


• An investigation by an organization called the "ICCT", which is funded by "European Climate" and "ClimateWorks" foundations, along with the European Commission, found that Volkswagen diesel ECUs were not using "clean" mode in real-world driving.


• This led to a huge media hoopla, with the mainstream press using language like "The world was rocked" and "consumers shocked" by the "revelations". Reuters even proclaimed that it was more important than the Greek sovereign debt crisis! Meanwhile, Volkswagen's CEO was forced to resign, while Audi's CEO was actually arrested.


• I pulled the numbers into a spreadsheet for some quick napkin math, and found that Volkswagen diesels were emitting on average five tenths of one gram more "NOx" per kilometer driven, where a "NOx" is an aggregate of harmful chemicals.


• According to the EPA, cars have had their "NOx" emissions reduced 99% since 1960.


• To put this Volkswagen "scandal" in perspective, this would mean that average "NOx" numbers for a 1960s car would be from 40 to 50 grams per kilometer-- versus .54 grams per kilometer for the "cheating" Volkswagens.


• To support this math, once the "cheating" was corrected via a simple ECU flash, actual change in real-world gas mileage of Volkswagen diesels was negligible, if non-existent.


• In the aftermath of all the drama, plus increasingly strangling regulations, Volkswagen killed off their diesel car line in America, and they are no longer for sale-- removing the primary competitor for external combustion cars.


• The average age of a car today in America is just shy of 12 years. Real median household income in the US is just over 60,000 USD. 63% of Americans can't afford an unexpected $500 expense.


• The average price of a new car in America is over 37,000 USD-- meaning, a new car costs nearly 40% of an entire family's wages, for an entire year. Most people live on extremely-used cars, because new cars are too expensive.


• Battery packs in electric cars last about 100,000 miles, or ten years, after which they cost between 5,000 and 10,000 USD to replace. This means there will be very little used car market for electric cars: they will be "totaled out" as soon as the battery pack expires.


• As cars continue to get more expensive, and the State continues to push electric cars via their "CAFE" fuel mandate standards, more people will be forced into mass transit, because fewer people will be able to buy and operate expensive electric cars.


• Tracking people's personal data is extremely lucrative. Google made 116 billion USD in revenue in 2018, just via accumulation of personal data used to sell advertisements. Meanwhile, Facebook made 55.8 billion USD in revenue in 2018, also on accumulation of personal data used to sell advertisements.


• Major cities now have hundreds of thousands of State-operated cameras, monitoring the movement of everyone. In London, there were over 627,000 such cameras, or one for every 14 people there.


• Car corporations are rebranding as "mobility" companies, where they will be collecting data about the user as they ride and are consuming "entertainment" as the autonomous car drives them around.

Tentative Conclusion

Governments, their environmentalist acolytes, and tech companies are trying to push people into either fully-autonomous electric cars or mass transit, so that people can be tracked and their data harvested for sale. After all, the most lucrative form of profit these days is in information peddling, and the State's actors naturally see that as also providing for the widest possible tax base.