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United States News Title: The Out Of Touch “Car Guy” Jay Leno used to be funny and now he is again. Just unintentionally. There is almost no reason to have a gas car, he announced on CNBC the other day. I have a Tesla. Ive had it for three years. Ive never done anything. Theres no fluids to change. Theres nothing. Nothing? Jay who styles himself a Car Guy ought to know better. Assuming he knows anything about cars. No fluids to change? Well, no oil/transmission fluid to change. How about brake fluid? Electric cars have this fluid, just like any other car and it does need to be changed. Its a good idea to change it about once every . . . three years. Tesla recommends a check every two. Jay apparently didnt read the manual. There is also coolant. Whoops! And of course, electric cars have tires and brake pads and other wear items that . . . wear out. Jay like everyone else who drives any car will eventually have to do not only something but several things. Including a few things people who dont buy electric cars will never have to do. The first thing he did was pay tens of thousands of dollars more for his electric car. Which costs him a great deal more than oil and filter changes. He also paid to install a high-voltage fast charger at his garage, which added about $1,000 (for the parts and the electrician to do the wiring). This essentially mandatory option unless you dont mind waiting 8-12 hours to recharge on standard 120 volt household current isnt listed on the window sticker. But not paying for this option is like not springing for tires for a non-electric car. Its hard to get rolling. So far, he hasnt paid the motor fuels taxes which are applied to every gallon of gas bought by non-electric car drivers. But that is going to change and then Jay (and every other EV owner) will have to do another thing: Pay for their currently free lunch. Hell also eventually have to do something people who dont buy electric cars will never have to do: Spend thousands on a new battery pack when the one in his Tesla begins to lose its capacity to receive and retain a charge. Which will increasingly and then dramatically reduce his cars driving range ultimately to nill. Which is something that never happens to a non-electric car, unless the engine locks up or the transmission starts to slip. Which sometimes happens, but not often. And not necessarily. You may never have to deal with that problem
if you dont own an electric car. But you will have to deal with it if you own an electric car. Maybe not for five years or even ten. But, eventually, Inevitably. Battery ED so to speak always happens, because of battery chemistry. The cycle of discharging/charging batteries is effectively wear and tear on them and it wears them all out eventually. This can be put off via thermal management, and by restricting fast charging to not quite full charging (which reduces the full-charge range). But it cant be avoided. Battery wilt is as inevitable as a clutch eventually wearing out in a non-electric car with a manual transmission. Transmissions and engines eventually wear out, too. But not as soon. And they dont cost as much. A clutch job might be necessary once every 100,000 miles or so if youre hard on the thing and itll generally cost you less than $1,000 bucks to fix. A transmission job is rarely necessary at all. Most non-electric car drivetrains will last the useful life of the vehicle, which is easily 15 years or more. It is doubtful and probably impossible, as a matter of chemistry for a battery subjected to repetitive discharge/charge cycling to last 15 years or even 10 before it begins to show signs of wear and tear (wont hold charge/loses charge more rapidly). Which means the car wont go as far before it needs to be recharged again . . . which accelerates the wear and tear. Soon, it wont go at all. Presto, you need a new battery. And replacing a Teslas battery pack will cost you thousands more on top of the tens of thousands extra you already paid for the car. These seem like pretty good reasons to not buy an EV. Jay told MSNBC: For new technology to succeed, it cant be equal. Its got to be better. Exactly so. Which is why its hilarious to listen to Leno say that about cars that arent. Of course, Jay has literally dozens of other cars so he never has to sweat how far his Tesla can go or how long it takes to recharge, because he can always take something else. Which is true of most electric car owners. They own a non-electric car to cover the electric cars deficits. To take them on the longer trips the EV cant make without multiple stops and long waits. To have a car that they dont have to plan their day around. That they can just get in, spur of the moment and go. Why not just skip the EV? Buy one non-electric car that doesnt practically force you to buy a second car? Which brings us to the final thing. Jay is very wealthy another thing that is true of almost all electric car owners. They have to be in order to be able to afford spending many thousands of dollars more for their electric cars plus the spare non-electric car, which they need for the same reasons most of us buy non-electric cars: To be able to get where were going, right now. And back again. In the same day. But not everyone is wealthy like Jay and his idol, Elon Musk. Who is wealthy because of subsidies paid for mostly by people who arent and cant afford to buy Teslas like the one Jays driving around. Its a hoot possibly his best monologue to date. Except he didnt mean for it to be funny. Subscribe to *Cars and Automotive* Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 12.
#12. To: Deckard (#0)
Leno and the author are both right,but Leno is most right. Like it or not,electric cars WILL be the norm in another 20 years or so,DESPITE all the advances in fuel mileage and fewer emissions. This is because the international investment banking houses smell a profit and can buy in low and then use their influence and under the table pay-offs to politicians to pass laws harmful to conventional auto production,and favorable to electric auto production. Consumers won't save any money,though. You can bet your ass the power companies,also owned by investment bankers,will lobby for goobermint grants to build more and more powerful electric plants to meet the advancing need for it. The end result is that you will no longer have a choice about who or where to buy your fuel. You WILL buy it from the only source supplying it,the local power grid. The author is also full of crap about stuff like flushing brake lines and refilling them with new brake fluid. This wasn't even done in the "bad old days" of DOT 3 brake fluid. I grew up working in garages,and the only times brake lines got flushed was when one broke,or the wheel cylinders and/or the master cylinder were rebuilt. I personally like the idea of electric cars and trucks because I am a torque freak,but I am NOT a fan of monopolies. Nor am I a fan of burning to death in a electric car after an accident because all the systems are shorted out and the windows won't go down and the doors won't open.
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