"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."Words, objects, actions have cultural meanings and associations that are both literal and symbolic. Learning those is what makes us linguistically and culturally competent.
Attributed to Sigmund Freud
An electric vehicle is just a vehicle, but like cigars, they have "baggage." Ten years ago a Tesla in the garage signified a prosperous, highly-educated, modern, early-adopter owner. The car represented virtue. There were no tailpipe emissions, they didn't use petroleum fuel, they were more crash-worthy, and they came loaded with accident-avoidance technology. Plus they were sleek and cool. The cultural meaning of the Tesla brand has since muddled. Elon Musk's controversial purchase and re-direction of Twitter, now X, moved his personal brand from "innovator wunderkind genius" into an "overly-entitled and willful bad-boy weirdo genius," and he has dragged Tesla along.
But Teslas, and EVs generally, still represent modern luxury.
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| Tesla pickup truck |
Political opponents of electric cars -- a group that overlaps Republicans, people representing fossil-fuel producing states, and people culturally opposed to the high-tech elitist liberal baggage vibe of electric cars -- point out the non-virtuous sourcing of materials in the battery. For them, electric cars are another iteration of liberal hypocrisy, with liberals pretending they are the good guys while people toil in dangerous misery mining rare earth metals in Africa and arch-rival China.
Electric cars have become center stage in politics due to the United Auto Workers strike. The primary issue is wages, but a subtext of the strike is that that legacy American auto manufacturers with union workforces have been slow to adopt electric car technology and that electric cars have fewer parts and will employ fewer people to assemble them. President Biden is famously pro-union, but Trump saw an opening that combined the specifics of the UAW labor action with the partisan sorting and cultural baggage of EVs. This pits climate-protecting Democrats against down-home blue collar working people who don't think there is anything wrong with the climate or with their gasoline and diesel vehicles -- except that liberals have raised the price of gasoline too high by their anti-drilling policies.
Teslas are assembled in a non-union factory in Fremont, California and workers there are paid substantially less than the current UAW employees. Teslas and electric cars represent a threat to the UAW. Trump announced a trip to support the UAW workers. Biden scrambled and scheduled a visit to come the day before Trump's. Biden will likely enjoy the public support of the union leadership. Trump may get the support of the members.
"They're American auto workers. They helped build our country and keep us on the move. We've always been able to count on them in times of war, peace, prosperity, and tough times. Yet all they've every wanted is to compete fairly worldwide, and get their fair share of the American dream. Donald Trump calls them great Americans, and has always had their backs, from tax cuts for their families to playing hardball with China. Biden? He's turned his back on the auto workers by cutting a deal that uses American tax dollars to fund China's electric car business. That's a stake in the heart for American auto workers, and they can count on President Trump to change that."
The cultural meaning of electric vehicles continues the conversation between myself and Herb Rothschild in the past two days of posts. I have argued that Democrats can be "right on climate" but wrong on the politics getting votes from working-class Americans. Democratic policies to reduce CO2 risk being read as elitist and hostile to working people. Trump is overtly pushing that message. Democrats need policies and messages that demonstrate that green energy is made in America by American workers.
I have seen ads of American workers installing solar panels and wind turbines. I have seen ads of well dressed professionals in shiny cars enjoying the luxury and quiet of an EV. I have not yet seen ads for electric vehicles that show blue collar men in rough clothes driving home from a productive day of work in an EV, but I hope to, and soon.
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One reason for our current predicament is the oil industry’s campaign of lies about the harm caused by their products, much like the tobacco industry not long ago. Another is the failure of our imagination. We could have been developing mass transit, and alternatives to fossil fuels have been around for a long time. For example, Meglev (magnetic levitation) trains were conceived of in the early 1900s but are only now being developed – and not in the U.S. (big surprise).
I own an EV Leaf. It’s not a Tesla or even Tesla-like. I gets a dependable 150 miles per charge. Charging at home means I’m paying 14 cents per kilowatt to charge a battery that holds 40 kW when fully charged but mostly it never gets that low with the driving I do. I also own an gas powered SUV that I use presently for long-distance trips. The gas tank holds 20 gallons of premium gas that gets me a dependable 300 miles. Both vehicles were purchased used. The maintenance on the Leaf averages $200 per year. The SUV averages $500 every 6 months. The insurance on the Leaf is greater than for the SUV by $600 per year due to the cost of repair due to the electronics and sensors. It’s worse for Teslas as repair can only be done at Tesla shops. My choice for an EV was economic but nice to know an EV helps the the air around our urban area.
Now to the politics and the Big Three automakers business decisions. GM pioneered the EV-1 that you could only lease. The leasees loved these cars but GM cancelled all the leases and destroyed all the cars. Their decision was guided by their board to stay with the gas powered vehicles. It seemed like a cozy relationship between automakers and Big Oil. Without retooling or any major capital cost the Big Three could keep using their existing plants and even shutter some by using off shore manufacturing, saving labor costs. Tesla shocked the Big Three by making a great-looking sedan and a network of charging stations just for Teslas. I’m sure fear rippled through the boardrooms of the Big Three and Big Oil when they realized their business model was challenged by this marketplace competition.
Enter Biden,s Build Baack Better policy including green energy and a network of charging stations around the country. One can see the Big Three and Big Oil are losing their grip on their market advantage and enormous profits. I can imagine some of the angst towards Biden stems from this policy that the current Republican Congress is sharpening their budget knives to cut. All the emotional social nonsense towards EV is gleefully exaggerated in attempt to terminate and disadvantage EV owners forcing them to stay with gas powered cars.
I’m not a “climate-protecting Democrat”, but like the idea of owning electric vehicles. When/if Elon dares to sell the Tesla electric pickup, I’ll have to decide between that and an electric pickup made by others. Maybe an F-150.
Why, you may ask. Not for being greener than other retired rednecks, not for climate issues, but mostly for performance, nearly silent driving (hell, they’re so quiet that th tires have imbedded sound proofing, and long term cost. The Model S (which my daughter bought right before price doubled) gets 100-120 miles per gallon equivalent.
As long as electric costs don't surge by 400% or more she’s saving about $1200 per year (16,000 miles per year, but only “paying for 4,000”, thus saving the cost of going 12,000 miles per year.) At an ICE vehicle's 30 mpg, that’s 400 gallons, or $1200 at $3/gallon.
I’m told the savings are enough to pay for the Tesla. Hmm, could be, but you need to own it long enough to drive it around 50 years!
Dang, will someone check my math? I want it to pay for itself before I die, and I’m getting a bit long in the tooth!
Oh, the other savings, considering no oil, fuel pump,radiator, antifreeze, tranny, oil pump, water pump, valves, pushrods, pistons, rings, push rods, tappets, innumerable gaskets, etc, I think there’d be good saving on parts and labor, but don’t have any numbers, alas.
One ironic fact. The Model S is way overpowered. At 2 seconds 0-60 mph, top speed over 180 mph, WHY? That’s faster than the Shelby Cobra with a souped up 427 cubic inch v8. Shouldn’t they drop the hp to, say, 3-400, instead of almost 1000 hp, and get EVEN BETTER fuel economy?
Nice info, john F. One issue you need to know: a kw tells you charging rate and or motor draw. The amount of power USED, eg stored in the battery is measured in kilowatt hours.
For example, if you charged your battery with a 10 kw charger, you’d charge the battery at 10 kWh in an hour, or 100 kWh in ten hours
Hope this helps; many ev owners don’t understand the difference.
Forgot to mention BRAKES. My daughter only very rarely uses the Tesla S brakes. Taking her foot partly or wholly off the accelerator initiates the retrograde braking. No rubbing brake pads, just the electric motor stopping the cr. Pretty cool, eh? Brakes should last for eons.
Musk is the definition of elite.
He is the Mr Burns of the US.
I would never buy a Tesla because of him.
But, but there almost a hundred Trans Athletes playing sports! Surely, that is more critical than even trying to fix the Climate Crisis !
My son just bought a Kia Sportage plug in hybrid. The electric side has a fairly short range of 35 miles, but since the vast majority of their intown travels are on bicycles, over y
the 910 miles incurred on their car in the first two months of ownership, they used 4.3 gallons of Gasoline. And with the Solar Panels on the roof, installed a couple years ago, they have not paid PG&E a dime since the panels went on line.
Ah, Ed, I first thought they put panels on the car's roof!!! How large is their solar array, in kw DC?
Thank you Malcolm.
You’re welcome, John.
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