The Age of Steam is upon us. Or, in this case, as we are several generations removed from the Age of Steam, we are adapting to the age of alternative energy. Alternative Energy is in itself a funny name, as energy is energy, so an alternate energy source is just a difference source than the fossil fuels we have been using for several centuries to foul up the planet.
Or, more to the point, some of these energy forms we have been using for quite some time. Coal has been with us for centuries. We have stories written about the people who have extracted it from the earth. Stories about the people who delivered it to houses. We have stories about the people who work with it, suffer illness from it, and die from its dreaded black lung disease. We hear tales of horror about going into the bowels of the earth and the mine shaft collapses, both newsworthy and legendary. We hear about perhaps even the greater horrors of strip mining and what it does to the community and general environment. We hear about clean coal, and the rebuttals there will never be any such thing as clean coal.
Coal drives machinery and begets our electricity. So does oil energy, nuclear and solar. No matter what source we utilize, it gets down to one or two things, driving our machinery and providing electricity. Our industrial machinery relies on these sources of energy. Some machinery requires the conversion from the energy sources into electricity, and others do not. The automobile is one of them. The automobile depends on the combustible engine, which is set off by tiny explosions initiated by gasoline or some other fossil fuel. That is the way it has been for nearly a century. First steam and then the internal combustible engine, functioning on diesel or gasoline.
Until now. With the world well aware that oil won’t be around forever, we have been searching for new sources to fuel our vehicles. There are rumors and then there is the reality. In the rumors, we have hydrogen powered cars and solar powered cars. Maybe. But not at the moment. What we do have are hybrid, part gasoline, part electric cars, and, finally, all electric cars.
Despite the pitfalls of short ranges and the need to find an electrical outlet, the electric car is upon us. Much as the Age of Steam was once upon us, the electric car is greeted with mixtures of wonder and skepticism. These two sentiments rest at the heart of our true diversity. We are naturally skeptical, and we are naturally in wonder. We live in awe of new achievements, technological breakthroughs, but we also revel in their subsequent failures. We either choose sides and split up the responsibility for uttering either sentiment, or we fall back into our time honored position of wait and see. Right now probably more people are waiting and seeing than pushing the pros and cons of electric powered transportation.
Nevertheless, it is here. The recent Los Angeles Car Show featured a variety of electric cars. Other, gas powered vehicles garnered not even half the excitement as the new offerings of electric cars. Damn near every car manufacturer stepped up to the plate, showcasing either its production model or prototype. It is here, and despite our concerns, we secretly can’t wait to embrace it.
Of course life will be different. With the economy in the dumper and the cost of gasoline bound to increase in the forthcoming years, a little fuel economy never hurt anyone. Electric powered vehicles offer just that. Also, electric cars can be fast, as in very, very fast. There is on reconstituted, electric powered old Datsun Sedan that is breaking quarter mile speed records at the local drag strips. They are fast, and they are cheap to fuel. They may lack the range, making longer trips a little difficult at the moment, but over time that concern with be a thing of the past.
Of course, electric cars don’t make the sexy sounds of the old V-8’s. No throaty, ass gripping roar as the engine accelerates. The quiet electric motor may lack something in the sex factor. As a matter of fact the sex factor may lack something as well. So far we have no reports of couples doing it in an electric car. No humming engines on Lover’s Lane. Singles don’t get hot over the new lack of throbbing engine. Hey, but throw in a few accessories, perhaps some truly futuristic accouterments, and having sex in an electric car will someday be downright sexy.
Okay, so with the price of fuel going sky high and the electric car the poster child of the car shows, what’s to become of the plain old internal combustion luxury roadsters we know and love? I live in Los Angeles where the love and reverence for the luxury car takes on religious dimensions. A perfunctory observation of the boulevards and parking lots would tell even the densest of individuals that you are nothing here if you can’t plod through bumper to bumper traffic in a 200 mile per hour Ferrari or Maserati. Or if you are too cheap to lay out the necessary $300,000 or more, the very least you can do is a Turbo Porsche or Aston Martin.
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If you are a paltry piker living from paycheck to paycheck than you should simply make do with a Lexus, BMW or Mercedes Benz. If not the top of the line, then at least an entry level or middle of the line model. Lest you disgrace yourself with anything that would appear unseemly and out of touch in an image minded status seeking society that has as its epicenter the City of the Angels.
And while Los Angeles is the epicenter for status seeking car culture, the rest of the nation, despite its protests of humility and self-denial, is not all that far behind. Not really. Look at the recent real estate boom, or the more recent real estate illusion, where millions of people took out equity loans on their overpriced homes to buy among other trinkets and beads a luxury automobile. Because if you can’t live in luxury for that ten minute trip to the market, what is life, after all?
But now, after all the years of scratching and stretching for that luxury automobile, we find ourselves in a proverbial quandary. There is the slow dawning that the sleek Italian or German, maybe even Japanese piece of machinery in the driveway will soon be diminished in status and value. The electric car is here, and it is the next big thing. Even if it is a modest Chevy Volt it may have more cachet than that lumbering Lexus some stranger must have left in your driveway. I mean, with everyone going electric, what is a person to do? When you can buy a sleek and sophisticated all electric 200 MPH Tesla to drive in bumper to bumper traffic what are you doing with that gas guzzling Neanderthal of another technological era?
Well, if you are a righteous, environmentally concerned individual, you would be giving away that smoking, belching dinosaur. You wouldn’t be caught dead in it, not when you could be ensconced in the vanguard of the 21st century. Let’s e objective. It’s time to go electric. So what to do with that suddenly out of fashion internal combustion vehicle?
Why you give it to the poor. That’s right. Sign over that pink slip to some non-profit organization and hand the keys to a member of the underclass. Let them experience luxury driving for a few brief moments before the polar caps melt and global warming floods the streets, making the Hummer the only drivable vehicle. Let the poor souls who are out of work or barely working, surviving grimly in this economic downturn, take a brief spin in an historical landmark of automotive engineering. It’s only fair.
It’s a win-win situation. The poor have a brief shot at luxury living, and you can feel good about brightening up their lives. You also get rid of this inconvenient truth of a luxury albatross that is so diminished in value it is hardly worth the paint that covers its metal. As for its value in status and image, you are driving the equivalent of a Nehru Jacket.
So let the poor have all those luxury cars. A few smiles, before the last hurrah. All those streamlined super designed German and Italian vehicles will brighten up those seedy neighborhoods. Add a shabby chic sensibility to the dilapidation and graffiti overload.
Some may caution with the price of gasoline ever on the increase it would burden the poor. They would have these beautiful cars but not the money to pay for the fuel that would power them. Not to worry. The poor are poor, remember. They are not going anywhere, anyway.
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