We know when someone is trying to sell us a pup.
Drivers are shunning electric vehicles (EVs) because they are ‘scared of change’, according to the boss of European car company Polestar.
Bollocks! I am not scared of change. I simply am not prepared to waste good money on an anachronism that went out of favour in the early twentieth century because it is not as efficient as the ICE. Lack of range, long charging times and poor infrastructure are perfectly valid reasons for declining this wonderful offer. But, yeah, you go ahead and insult us. I’m still not buying.
An actual bubble car would be infinitely preferable to one of these political bubble cars.
I wonder what this clown is actually thinking. If he has so much as a single functioning brain cell, how can he not know what absolute dogs these things are.
The only people actually making money are probably the ad agencies!
But if you were the boss of European car company Polestar (which is really Chinese/Volvo), with your salary, bonus, share-scheme, pension etc. riding on it, you’d spout bollocks like that simply to shift the blame onto the ‘dumb’ customers.
You daren’t insult the various government who have provided vast tax-bribes/subsidies to float your enterprise, or even blame yourself for having a negative job, so who else can you blame?
But, as Gerald Ratner discovered decades ago, it’s never smart to insult your customers, however thick they are – bye bye Polestar, the Grim Reaper approaches.
Damned right I would!
But the reality of milk floats – their utter real world uselessness – is writing on the wall for that salary, bonus, share-scheme (fuck the other employees though).
If he does have any sense, he’s likely looking for another ship to jump to.
It will be interesting to see if he ends up in another private company – one that actually relies on shifting product people want – or some subsidy farming scam/governmental agency.
I can just imagine you sitting cross-legged on a rug, The thumb tip on each hand touching the tip of each finger in turn as you thought of that post title.
Mudras.
EVs are demonstrably less practical as a means of transport than petrol or diesel vehicles; no-one with any sense argues otherwise. The only argument in their favour depends on a creaking tower of flaky statements: electricity is better for the environment, only true if (a) carbon dioxide is bad for it and (b) electricity generation does not produce carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is only bad for the environment if the climate models are right, which they demonstrably are not; and even if they were, the effects are tiny compared with the spoutings of the doomsters.
So, lacking any rational arguments, Polestar is reduced to insulting its potential customers. Presumably they think that will work better …
Scared of change? No.
Apprehensive of change? Yes.
One thing that working in maintenance gives you is a healthy apprehension when it comes to messing with things that are working.
If something is working, unless there is a good reason to change it, then don’t.
I’m forever doing routine maintenance and coming across instructions to change a valve/regulator setting to a set point. Nope nope nope. Unless it isn’t working, it’s not getting moved. Do so at your peril. It’s Chesterton’s fence in the wild. It’s like that for a reason. Change it back and you’ll probably end up having to swap out something big.
The change to electric cars is the same. ICE vehicles work. The system works. There is no pressing reason to change it. So fucking don’t.
I’m retired and live in a flat so can’t charge an ev at home. Since l’ve no intention of sitting around for an hour or more to charge one elsewhere nothing would tempt me to think an ev is a good idea.
Including all the people who don’t have off road parking there are millions of people in the same situation. This is why the general public aren’t interested – ev’s simply don’t meet the needs of the average customer.
The vast majority of battery cars are being sold to business and as company cars, because the tax breaks make them a no brainer, plus they’re usually a 3 year prospect and even the most awful new car should be able to cover 3 years without falling apart.
The only private buyers i see are pensioners and virtue signallers, i don’t know of any single normal person in my aquantance or at work who has one of these things bought rented or leased with their own money, the electric car scheme offered to employees appears not to have a single punter…not helped by the fact that non company cars won’t be allowed to charge at work.
Hell if i had a company car it too would be whatever cost me the least, so battery or plug in hybrid it would be, as a company car user you’d be daft not to, i’d keep on old barge or hire a real car for holidays and long private journeys.
If you do buy in and you want affordable (so far) overnight charging that means a smart meter, they can stick those where the sun fail to shine too.
Who the hell trusts the govt anyhow, its pissed ours and borrowed money up the wall as anyone would expect from 600 drunken sailors for decades, when they’ve conned and bullied enough poor buggers into the battery wheeze does anyone really believe that cheap running costs will stay the same? if they do i’ve got a bridge for sale.
Anywway, we all know battery power isn’t supposed to benefit the masses with their own cheap as chips private transport, the plan i am more sure each day is to take away us plebs private transport and re-instate the Zil lanes for the more than equal.
It’s the fleet market that has artifically inflated the sales figures. Now that the first generation are coming onto the used market, the real world is showing its true colours. For long term sustainability, it needs private sales and that isn’t happening. However, your last paragraph is what this is all about. When you look at the 15 minute cities and statements made by politicians in recent years, not to mention Sad IQ Kuhnt’s membership of C40, which makes no bones about it, then yes, this is simply the first move towards pushing us off the roads. Given the sheer numbers of people who will be affected, I find myself wondering just how long it will take for people to stand up and refuse to go along with this? The Blade Runners are a small step. Refusal to buy milk floats is another, but the people making these polices need to be hurt by it. Until that happens, until they have their Ceausescu moment, nothing will really change.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, in BD3 where I work along with the Free Palestine flags adorning them…when they eventually get dumped it’s “I’m not the Mohammed you’re looking for…Innit?”
Ah, “You’re scared of change!”, the battle cry of the modern-day charlatan. I always ask them what they make of Brexit.