Remember the feeling when you got your first car?
You’d finish work on Friday, throw a change of clothes in the back and escape for the weekend. The car has been the iconic symbol of personal freedom for almost 100 years.
This was my first car
(JV 600) – thanks to my parents.
Actual photo, circa 1980.
Who could afford something like that when they were 18?
The Purvis Eureka was great for driving up and down Crown Street on a Thursday night with my best friend, smiling at the girls waving at us as we drove past. I had no idea what we’d do if one of them wanted a lift! It was a 2-seater after all with enough luggage space for a toothbrush and a pair of socks. Needless to say, when I went on a road trip, it was in my mate’s car, not mine.
I assume that everyone has taken at least one massive road trip. During the 1980 Christmas holidays, I drove with one mate from Wollongong to Brisbane to visit my cousin and when I returned, I drove with another mate from Wollongong to Melbourne to visit some friends we met on a cruise. Crossing the border without a pass and filling the tank for under $25. Oh, the freedoms we took for granted!
In the early days of BHP’s Operating Excellence group, I recall a team-building event at the Mt Cotton Defensive Driving Course.
In teams, we competed using hire cars and learnt how to recover from an induced slide (diesel + water), brake effectively, reverse safely and lots more. Driving cars was necessary for the OE team as we travelled to various BHP sites, but was a significant risk to our safety. But cars were not just used to get us from A to B. We also used them to serve our customers, build a stronger team and develop some great friendships. Vroom Vroom!
California is attempting to pass a law that will ban Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars by 2035.
By Model Year 2032, they say that 70 % of all new vehicles sold will be EV’s.
Currently, in the US, EV’s have a market penetration of ~ 7 %. They cost significantly more than ICE cars, have a much smaller range, have few charging stations and the cost of battery replacement is prohibitively high.
And yet, they want EV’s to go from 7 % to 70 % of the market in about 9 years!
The Australian government is planning similar radical car market transformations, even though we Aussies are way behind in charging stations and have a far smaller population density than the USA. Imagine a property owner in far North QLD or in the Pilbara trying to survive with a range of 400 km. How many deaths will be tolerated from people out of charge too far from a station or mobile service?
My daughter and her best friend (an AGW believer) recently returned from a holiday in Scotland. They had initially hired an EV for their trip, as it was much cheaper (subsidised, obviously). After a week or so of struggling to find charging stations and spending hours to top up minimally on the standard slow charge, they begged their hire company to swap their EV for an ICE vehicle.
Thank God the hire car company agreed to the swap and they were able to venture into the Northern Scottish Munro without the very likely risk of becoming stranded.
In Australia in 2022, EV purchases accounted for just 3.8 per cent of the national car total.
CarExpert Founder Paul Maric says Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s electric vehicle strategy is “pricing the average Australian” out of getting a car by “excluding the type of car they can buy” in Australia.
In the video at the 2:20 min mark Paul asks: “What’s the difference in price between an ICE and EV car?” He then compares the base model Telsa ($70k) with a Toyota Rav 4 ($40 – $50k). NOTE: A Rav 4 is a larger and more versatile car than a basic Tesla.
The purchase price difference between an EV and an ICE car is significant. The only way for the government to make the EV relatively more affordable is through legislation and market manipulation. That is, significant subsidies and incentives for EV’s vs ICE cars.
HOWEVER, this will not reduce the price of an EV, rather, it will increase the price of an ICE car, making car ownership for young people a thing of the past. Is this really about getting more people to OWN EVs? I think not. But it will ensure that fewer people will OWN cars.
Go back just five years and ask yourself “Will the Saudi’s ever envision a future with no cars?”
But owning a car and using it freely are two very different propositions.
The Biden administration has mandated the installation of kill switches in all new cars by 2026.
Now, why would they want to do that?
Such tyrannical car policy decisions are even causing some leading progressive left voices to freak out.
In this 3 min video clip, we have Young Turk Ana Kasparian
“freaking the f&%k out” about California’s (at the time) proposed (now real) moves to ban ICE cars.
WARNING. Her rants are expletive-ridden.
She is obviously concerned about the affordability of the Green New Deal – and rightly so! Don’t forget, she is a wealthy social media influencer. How will an 18-year-old ever afford an EV?
Her co-host Cenk Uygur attempts to justify the situation by inserting a thought-terminating cliche (2:15 min mark) “At some point we’ve gotta go to electric cars. We don’t have a choice. The planet’s burning, so we’ve gotta go to electric cars.”
So it’s inevitable? That’s what they’d have us believe.
There are two critical questions in response to this preposterous claim.
- Is the planet actually “burning up?”
- If that claim is false, what’s the real agenda here?
Firstly, stick your head out the window and after wiping the icicles from your nose-hairs, tell me if “the planet’s burning up.” It’s actually quite cool, despite the continual rise in atmospheric CO2 levels.
I’ve written about this many times in the past, but it’s worth repeating. The ONLY accurate surface temperature measurement Network is the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN).
This modern (and only accurate) network of rural monitoring stations clearly shows that monthly temperatures have cooled, not warmed, more than 75% of the time since 2005. So, for the past 20 years or so, what’s happened to the causal link between rising atmospheric CO2 levels and global warming?
Like Fatty Vautin’s Footy Show, it’s GOOOOOOONE!
It’s precisely this lack of science and the NET ZERO mind virus that is driving electricity prices through the roof.
This is going to cost people their livelihoods; perhaps even their homes and their lives.
It’s such a huge scam!
Cooler than normal weather is not just persisting in the USA, but it’s also in Australia and Europe.
And for those climate alarmists who claimed that snow would be a thing of the past, take a look at this:
As I’ve written before, in multiple articles, our climate is a very complex system with huge natural variation due to solar irradiance, ocean currents and complex atmospheric systems. Claiming that climate change is caused by CO2 is simply bogus.
Worse, it’s a religious cult claim!
In a March 14 2023 Rasmussen poll:
60% of Likely U.S. voters agree – including 47% who Strongly Agree – that
climate change has become a religion that
“actually has nothing to do with the climate.”
In previous articles, including Mercury Rising and Closing Arguments, I explained, with “Climategate” emails, how temperature measurements prior to the USCRN were manipulated
to make the “hot” 1930’s appear cooler and the 1980’s – 2000’s appear hotter than reality in order to build the narrative that temperature depends on CO2 levels.
Lies, Damn lies and Statistics!
No, Mr. Uygur – the planet’s not burning.
What you’re smelling is your pants on fire!
US Congressman Chip Roy gave an impassioned speech recently on the foolish spending related to this “unicorn” green energy.
The full speech is from (0:39 – 5:00) in this video. Politicians, both left and right, seem to be easily swayed by big donor dollars, but Roy demands that true Patriots hold the line on debt ceiling negotiations to stop the foolish spending. He says that we can’t allow the worst kind of corporate cronyism to steal our children’s future. He specifically speaks to obscene EV subsidies from the 3:30 min mark.
So, if Climate Alarmism is a lie and NET Zero a scam, why are so many organisations and all of the legacy media pushing them?
Where is this all heading and why?
In the next article, I’ll provide my opinion on this, based simply on reading and synthesising the plans of the WEF and UN in the light of current and recent events.
