Car Culture was a Mistake 8: You shouldn't outsource the EV industry to one South African bigoted maniac (who is probably a Cylon)

I Cylon Musk hereby Shadowban Taibbi!

Elon Musk is no Henry Ford.  Well, except for the depressive narcissism and loving embrace of Nazi Culture.  But, placing the entire EV car industry in his hands was a mistake which is paying massive negative dividends to America and the world at large.

Musk recently lost a decision in the Delaware Chancery Court, in which the Tesla Board attempted to award Musk a $55,000,000,000 (that's 55 BILLION) dollar CEO compensation package.

There is no amount of work, Elon Musk or anyone else could have done, to be worth $55 Billion in compensation.  The Gold Standard for contributions to the human race has to be Jonas Salk and his creation of the Polio Vaccine (which if done today, would get Salk death threats from conservatives and attacks from Reactionary Joe Rogan who would cut a promo promising to guillotine choke Jonas Salk).  And famously Salk declined to patent his literal life-saving Vaccine.  Elon Musk is no Jonas Salk he's not even a real boy.  Elon Musk is a Cylon.

Remember that Boards have a fiduciary duty to raise the value of the stock and company to the shareholders.  It's not a private business like the Chicago Bears who can pursue any bad coaching or terrible player development decisions they deem fit.

Musk is furious because he's got no Real Assets, only the false valuation of Tesla which Wall Street has for inexplicable reasons counted as more valuable than all other car companies combined.  On paper and computer servers that is, in the real world Teslas are rapidly aging and becoming an Albatros of a vehicle.

For instance, it turns out you can not drive a Cybertruck anywhere.  Now, I don't mean all those hilarious videos of Cybertrucks failing to navigate a mound of dirt or being unable to carry anything in their truck bed bigger than a bread basket.  No, I mean if the Cybertruck's exterior touches anything found outside it will corrode and destroy its "stainless steel".

“To prevent damage to the exterior, immediately remove corrosive substances (such as grease, oil, bird droppings, tree resin, dead insects, tar spots, road salt, industrial fallout, etc.). Do not wait until Cybertruck is due for a complete wash. If necessary use denatured alcohol to remove tar spots and stubborn grease stains, then immediately wash the area with water and a mild, non-detergent soap to remove the alcohol. Do not wash in direct sunlight,” “Some cleaners and car shampoos contain chemicals that can cause damage or discoloration,” and even “Do not use hot water.”

Anyway since we as a culture have decided to treat paper billionaires as though they really have assets and Musk then translated this into a purchase of Twitter despite not actually having the $44 Billion cash on hand to make the purchase, he needs the Tesla Board to give him real money swindled from the fantasy valuation of Tesla.

When you combine this with the on-going Scam of Crypto Currency, it seems exceedingly likely we are headed for a major crash, as Wall Street and other financial institutions continue to inflict the Ponzi scheme of Capital on humanity.

Of course, coupled with this were several high profile stories the Corporate Media dutifully reported as major issues for the EV Industry at the behest of the panicked pushback for the Petroleum Industry.

During, Chicago's bitter negative degree period in mid-January Teslas were abandoned at charging stations across the City.

Some Tesla drivers learned the hard way about how cold weather affects battery life.  Teslas lined up early Monday morning at a charging station at The Evergreen Marketplace, at 9200 S. Western Ave. in Evergreen Park. Some Tesla batteries died in Chicago's sub-zero temperatures, leaving the cars askew and immobile in the parking lot.  Drivers said some charging stations weren't working, and those working took much longer than usual to charge.

This just in:  Cold weather affects battery life!  

Meanwhile, on-line doofuses were giddy at the announcement Hertz to abandon their entire EV fleet and replace them with gas-powered vehicles.  The slightest investigation revealed, however, Hertz decision was not because of EV unreliability but, because Tesla's are losing their value steeply and the cost to repair Tesla's damaged by car renters was rising exponentially.

If you've read this far and are coming to the conclusion that Hertz's "EV problem" is, in reality, a "Tesla value and repair costs problem," you're not alone. It's difficult to draw conclusions about EV suitability for the rental car market when so many cost factors conspired against Hertz's mostly Tesla fleet.

In October, Hertz indicated that future EV acquisitions would benefit from lower purchase price and lessons learned from its Tesla fleet. Given Scherr's comments, we'd assume that it would strongly consider parts and labor costs in its calculus—and unless it comes to some deal with Tesla holding those costs down, that points to the company acquiring EVs from different automakers.

EVs are only 11% of Hertz's total fleet, so the 20,000 EVs the company is going to sell off by the end of 2025 represent 4.4% of the entire fleet. This does not seem like a permanent retreat from the EV business for Hertz, but rather a reallocation of a small portion of its overall assets in an attempt to hold costs down. 

Tesla and Elon Musk made Electric Vehicles cool again as the Big Automakers abandoned the technology.  That's the story, Wall Street, the Corporate Media, Musk Fanbois, and Cylon Musk himself sold.  It's been worth a lot of money.  Has it any value?  Maybe some, not $55 Billion, but then Cylon Musk has always been a weird, self-promoting, bigoted narcissist who loves Racism and the power he wields.

Car Culture was a Mistake Part 6: Roads

In my on-going tirade against Cars in America let's talk about the biggest drawback of using cars as the primary mode of transportation;  Roads.  

Where we're going we do need roads...

There are (as of 2017) supposedly 4 million miles of roads in the United States.  Of this, over 2,600,000 are paved by asphalt or concrete.  Roads are expensive to make and maintain and represent the biggest drawback to cars, because anything which disrupts clear well-maintained paved roads leads quickly to a cascading failure of travel.

And if you have to go off-road, well I don't recommend the CyberDalek because you can't fit a 4 ft tree in the bed and you can't get over a mild snowy incline without being pulled by a Ford F-150...

A single point of failure will snarl traffic and create hazards which leads to bad driving, accidents, and injuries.  In Chicago, this single point of failure can range from excessive snowfall, vehicle breakdowns, to general road disrepair and maintenance.  

Cars are "fantastic" modes of transportation... as long as everything goes correctly.  When a poorly maintained vehicle (whether through negligence, ignorance, heavy usage or lack of finances) breaks down in traffic that road quickly becomes an evil red line on google maps.  And woe be to the commuters caught in a massive accident, like the 100 car pile up on the highway between Beliot and Janesville or when a Wisconsin semi-truck wrecker driver leaves his trailer arm I an elevated position and takes out an underpass.

Or even worse most people don't think about what is transported on these roadways.  So if a careless speeding driver tries to pass in a no-passing zone and the semi-truck trailer which veeres is transporting Anhydrous Ammonia, people die;

On Friday, September 29, 2023, about 8:41 p.m. central daylight time, a 2005 International 9900ix truck-tractor in combination with a 1978 Mississippi Tank Company MC331 cargo tank semitrailer (combination vehicle), was traveling west on United States Highway 40 (US-40), a two-lane roadway near Teutopolis, Effingham County, Illinois. The combination vehicle was owned and operated by Prairieland Transport, LTD., of Brownstown, Illinois, and the cargo tank was loaded with approximately 7,500 gallons of UN1005, anhydrous ammonia, which is a Hazard Class 2.2 material and an inhalation hazard. [1] ​ 

At the same time, an oncoming eastbound vehicle was approaching the westbound combination vehicle, and a westbound passenger vehicle was passing the combination vehicle in a no-passing zone. The driver of the combination vehicle stated that to prevent a collision between the westbound passenger vehicle and the oncoming eastbound vehicle, he took evasive action by steering to the right. The combination vehicle departed the roadway and traveled into a shallow roadside drainage ditch. The truck-tractor struck the end of a 12-inch-diameter corrugated metal pipe culvert installed beneath a field entrance, and the combination vehicle jackknifed and rolled onto its right side with its cargo tank sliding forward. 

The exposed front end of the cargo tank struck the tow ring of a utility trailer that had been parked adjacent to the roadway on private property. The tow ring punctured the front of the cargo tank, which led to the release of anhydrous ammonia into the atmosphere as a toxic gas in the form of a white cloud.   

​​​​The driver of the combination vehicle sustained injuries as a result of the crash and exposure to the anhydrous ammonia gas. Additionally, five people in the area of the crash died and 11 others sustained injuries ranging from minor to severe due to their exposure to anhydrous ammonia. (From the NTSB Report October 25, 2023)

About the only thing I remember from the Hazmat training courses is Anhydrous Ammonia is incredibly dangerous and you'd better flee in the area.  Anhydrous Ammonia attacks and destroys membranes in the lungs, eyes, nose, mouth and so forth.  It's a fertilizer and is widely used in Illinois and other farming states.

The trailer carrying the Anhydrous was on that small narrow crumbling state road because I-70 is undergoing a massive rebuild due to multiple years of delayed maintenance 

This is part of the Rebuild Illinois program which according to the State,

Over the next six years, IDOT is planning to improve more than 2,500 miles of highway and nearly 10 million square feet of bridge deck as part of Rebuild Illinois, which is investing $33.2 billion into all modes of transportation. As of March 31, Rebuild Illinois has made $10.9 billion of improvements statewide on 4,913 miles of highway, 479 bridges and 709 additional safety improvements.

When I was in junior high I always recall everyone making the ridiculous comparison that highways weren't even XX years old and are constantly falling apart whilst the Pyramids are 2500 years old and still standing.  These type of trite factoids blew teenage minds.

Then there is the weather as the Chicago Winter approaches everyone is hoping the El Niño will bring diminished cold and snow fall because the snow exacerbates the already poor driving behavior, as I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't over-estimate their driving skill, underestimates the space needed to brake or avoid a situation in the road in front of them, and constantly overdrives the conditions.  The old joke is there are only two seasons in Chicago; Road Construction and Winter.

So, disrupt any one link on the chain or stress any of the single point of failure and things became very messy, very quickly and drivers already stressed, late, distracted, or angry become very, very dangerous.

Car Culture was a Mistake Part 3: Everyone drives like a maniac

You say the laws are getting harder to obey 
And the rules 

are being broken every-day 
You got the picture, 

and now your time has come 

Anarchy is open season 

for everyone

- Mutiny on the World, Armored Saint (1984) 

Besides crime sprees and DUIs there are all those other traffic violations, drivers commit daily. 

Now some of this is the media sensationalism, which always always always will run with Crime is Out of Control and remember Crime is synonymous with cities and cities is synonymous with BLACKS! so these news stories on speeding and bad driving never get around to the reporting anything other than white people have Vibes that blacks are maniacs.  

So, for instance the recent story of a rich, white, super entitled toxic white man driving his Bentley at 100+mph towards the Rainbow Bridge POE is immediately recast by rightwing propagandists as a Terrorist attack by Hamas with Iranian passports because the the immediate lies told by conservatives are never really debunked but, become a sort of residual reminder about crime/the border/terrorism being bad under Democrats!

And as a matter of course, certain people get, fawning media pieces, which highlight their humanity and their struggles instead of being neatly slotted into the category of career criminal;

THIS IS NOT the sort of life Rebecca Grossman was supposed to be living.  The 58-year-old former flight attendant turned socialite was meant to be spending her middle years enjoying the bounties of upper-class privilege. Married to one of L.A.’s most successful plastic surgeons—Peter H. Grossman, founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation and whose father founded the Grossman Burn Center, which took in actress Anne Heche after a high-speed crash in Mar Vista in August and where Jay Leno was treated in November following a garage gas fire—she had everything a real housewife of Hidden Hills could possibly want: A $7.6 million nine-bedroom ranch house in a gated community right next door to a movie star (well, Lori Loughlin), a thriving family (two teenage kids and an adopted daughter—a young burn victim Grossman and her husband adopted from Afghanistan in 2002 so that she could be treated at Peter’s hospital—two horses, five dogs, and a 100-pound turtle), a wardrobe that would have Lisa Vanderpump biting her knuckles with envy, and an expensive—and, as it would turn out, fatefully fast—Mercedes coupe.  

The above story ends with media-crowned "socialite" Rebecca Grossman playing a "frisky game of cat and mouse" at 80+ mph, while driving drunk, obliterating two children while they walked in a crosswalk.  Being safely ensconced in a 5000 lb guided missile grants people the feeling of invulnerability.  There are many other factors at play here.  Everyone is habitually late for whatever appointment, job, meeting, yoga session, they have.  Everyone routinely uses their phone while driving.  Everyone underestimates the amount of traffic they will run into in the Chicago-land.

I don't believe in the red-light cameras and automated speed monitor tickets, it's just a back door tax on working class people.  Also we've seen how unscrupulous companies bribe susceptible politicians and then manipulate their systems in order to make violations happen.  Millions of dollars in fraudulent fines... 

And the Rules of the Road? Don’t make me laugh the vast majority of drivers treat the "Rules of the Road" as a loose guideline to be adhered to only when absolutely necessary (i.e. when they see a squad car).  No one ever drives the speed limit.  Ever.  School zones?  Fuck them kids.  Residential streets?  Whatever I'm Late!  Main thoroughfares, well 9 miles over isn’t really speeding!  Highways!  Highway to Hell at 100 miles per hour!

Police have themselves to blame only partly for this as 1) there are just way too many vehicles to stop and most departments are handling such a large volume of other calls (whether they should be or not) and 2) most drivers don't give a fuck.

Now, when most drivers see a squad car whether it be State, County, or Local they still slam on those brakes and observe the rules of the road I do think defensive driving and deference to Police while driving is a thing of the past because of the way Police departments have exhausted the good will with their unlawful and evil actions.  Once that capital is burned through, as it has been, it takes a lot of time to reaccumulate it and requires an extraordinary effort from Police.

Republicans hate America 11 : Wishing and praying and hoping for a Terrorist attack on the Rainbow Bridge POE

Republicans hate you.  With a fervor with a passion normally reserved for jilted lovers.  Republicans hate you so much they will lie about anything and everything.  Republicans are literally insane, mad with the lust for power, and insatiable in the quest to harm America.

Because Republicans fundamentally want to change the country and they can't do that honestly and they can't do that with accurate descriptions of their policies and that can't do that with reporting facts; they can only accomplish their desire to turn the Nation into a simulacrum of Freedom & Liberty by lying.

So it begins...  They began with the false somber tone Republicans always adopt; their worst fears are turning true, confirmation of a vehicle packed with explosives, Iranian passports located outside the vehicle, the border is being invaded by Hamas terrorists, and then morphed those somber "facts" into a sweeping condemnation of the President Biden and the Democratic Party and anyone who would show sympathy for migrants.  Because don't you know the Border is a Disaster! 

Because Republicans win by creating and then exploiting Fear & Anger.  They must keep their ill-informed drones in a state of perpetual terror, afraid of the hordes ready to rob, rape, and murder them but, for the policies of the Republican Party.  But, for draconian rule of Republican Fascism.

The reality of what happened at the Rainbow Bridge POE is immaterial.  That it was another illustration of the toxic car culture of America; a rich Upstate New York man drives his quarter-million dollar Bentley 100+ mph to get over the border into Canada to attend a KISS concert and in so doing also kills his unfortunate wife in the process doesn't matter because thousands of Republicans (including elected Senators and other officials) tweeted out the BORDER TERRORISM BIDEN FAULT story which becomes part of the subjective reality of the rightwing collective unconscious.

One thing is certain though Republicans are correct we are at war... with them...  Republicans are engaged in a low intensity Civil War against Us punctuated by spectacular violence from their AR15 armed domestic terrorists and buttressed my the bureaucratic violence they conduct when republicans gain enough political power.  Fascism is here and it's planning on making the 2024 elections the last ones in American History.

Car Culture was a Mistake Part 0: Driver, Less Cars

Well, I had planned on writing a series of posts on the state of automobiles in America but, this being the internet shit bird vultures lie in wait to insult you and hide behind pseudonyms.  Sure it's infuriating but, this the information/social media age...  anyway back to this post.

In a post Labor Day vacation to the National Parks in Montana and Wyoming, I took a drive up the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park.  In 1932 the roadway was first laid out with it's low-grade, tight switchbacks, and stone arch abutments leading tourists to Logan's Pass.  Of course, one of the problems is you are trusting people who may or may not have driving skills for a narrow roadway with a deep nearly guard rail free drop.

America's so-called "love affair" with automobiles is, right now, an unassailable state of affairs, this may change in the future but, it will be a slow process.  For the foreseeable future, including the transition to all electric in this decade, everyone will still cling to the idea of having their own hermetically sealed pod to travel from point to point.  

I say so-called because "America's love affair with the automobile" was a carefully crafted plot.  Freedom,  Independence, The Open Road, were all sold to Americans as the key to their Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness.  However, counter-culture icon Jack Kerouac's fame came from his work On the Road, the semi-factual philosophical treatise of Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and the oeuvre of The Boss, including his first magnum opus Born to Run, the original Back to the Future featured an iconic/idosyncratic car as it's not-so-subtle vehicle (pun intended) to let the American people get back to their nostalgic past again, all of these came about after a long-string of decision points in American history ensured cars and the network of roadways necessary for cars to function were the dominant form of travel.

Much of this was a deliberate choice by America as white flight from cities into suburbs and now exurban environments was pushed as the American Dream of being a member of the landed gentry; your own small feudal estate with workers to mow your lawn and half your property being a "carriage house" to store your fleet of vehicles.

The worst problem with automobiles in America; Drivers.  Drivers are terrible; rushed, inattentive, dangerous, overconfident, reckless, drunk, and prone to fits of rage.  The atomization and enclosed cockpit leads to a fighter pilot mentality directly contributing to aggressive driving; that a term like Road Rage is well-known and documented by thousands of hours of Youtube videos, and page hit after page hit and hundreds of accidents daily; including pedestrian and cyclist fatalities.

Cyclists being hit by cars and drivers in Chicago is so pervasive the Illinois crash report forms have a special yes/no box called "Dooring".  WBEZ had a long story on the 1600 car/cyclist crashes (a warted of which were hit-and-runs) and the inadequacy of Chicago's painted bike lanes which means bicyclists often take their health and safety into the hands of people who often don't have those hands on the wheel.

Pedestrian fatalities have risen, both in real numbers and as an increased percentage of total car related
deaths every year since 2010.  There are numerous contributing factors but, Drivers are the prime problem.  And... only in a Nation wedded to cars would the solution be to keep the car and take the driver out.  Which means everyone is rushing head-long to make Driver, Less Cars the new normal.