Electric Cars Are Not Electrifying

I've been researching electric cars, wondering if it was time to consider getting one to replace our older car. How long have the car companies been working on these? They've been saying they were around when cars were first being made, and the limitations then were the same limitations they've got now; only a few dozen miles per charge and long re-charging times. They haven't made much progress with those problems, they say, because electric cars were abandoned in favor of gas burning cars.

I was a little surprised to hear this is a second chance for electric cars; I was greatly dismayed to hear they haven't made any progress in eliminating those early problems. No, electric technology has not specifically been looking at being used in cars for the past hundred years, but hasn't it made any progress at all?

I even went so far as to look at re-charging stations that have been established for these cars. I was especially interested in the quick re-charging stations, which can recharge you to 90% in only half an hour. I was sadly disappointed. The closest recharging station of any kind was in Kansas City, and beyond that on the way to Florida, St Louis. There are none in Omaha, where I live. Since electric (and hybrids) get about 100 miles per charge, I could not use one to get even as far as Kansas City, which is not quite 200 miles away.

I like my traveling. I'd like to do a lot more of it while I'm still able to. But unless these people making electric cars get serious about it, I'm still going to have to burn gas to do it.

Bummer.

Stubborn Failure

Okay, so the Super Committee charged with figuring out how to balance the US budget didn't manage to figure out a darned thing. How many of us did NOT see that coming?

One side thinks that raising the taxes on the ultra rich people and corporations would not raise nearly enough money to do the budget any good. And then on top of that, they want to cut Social Security and Medicare/aid, which amounts to stripping away even more money from everybody, but especially the poor. The other side – having already negotiated away many of their 'wants' in the spirit of 'cooperation' – has now developed their own stubborn streak and want to increase the taxes on wealthy people and corporations to make a start on cutting the deficit. Increasing the load on the middle and lower classes is pretty unthinkable to them.

My first thought is, let's do the math. So let's take a family that makes $50,000 a year. That's not a lot of money, but according to my research, that's about the median amount for a household, so let's use that amount. Let's raise their taxes 1% per year, which would be an extra $500 for the government. And if there's 9 people in this category for every person in the next category, then that comes to $4,500 per year. A mere drop in the bucket compared to our debt, but apparently, it's a big enough drop to satisfy some members of Congress.

Now let's look at a family that makes $100,000 a year. To me, that's a lot of money, and my family could live very comfortably, but the top '1%' make much more than that. Still, let's look at raising the taxes on that amount that same 1% per year. That comes to $1,000 for the government. Comparing this $1,000 per household to the $4,500 per 9 households does not seem like it would provide much debt relief, does it?

However, based on what's been said recently, the one side that wants to raise taxes on the rich are talking about the 'upper 1%', not the upper 10%. Roughly, that means those making $1,000,000 OR MORE per year. 1% of $1,000,000 is $10,000, which is approximately 2 drops in the bucket of our debt. And $1,000,000 is the MINIMUM income of those who would see their taxes rise. No, it won't solve the debt problem all by itself. But if the middle and lower classes are expected to solve that problem all by themselves, it would be a giant step away from democracy ... towards slavery. And some of us already feel we're a slave to our job, particularly when the economy is bad.

I don't really expect it to happen, but I sure wish certain members of Congress would grow up and do what they were elected to do. And I don't mean 'toe the party line'. They're supposed to be logical beings, capable of thinking about the Greater Good, not What's Good for a Few.

History Lesson

Way back in school, I heard someone say, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." I thought it meant that those students who could not manage to memorize dates and names would have to repeat the class. So I diligently memorized names, dates and places, even though the part of history that really interested me was the people – What did people of that time period eat, drink, wear, own, think?

But for the most part, nobody seems to care about the people of any given period. Students might be given a dozen names to remember, but what they wind up knowing about those chosen individuals (long enough to take the test) is that this one was the general on Side A of this battle, that one was a political leader whose main policy was...

After school, I sometimes would pick up a book, an article, or some other form of knowledge about a particular era, looking for the 'social' history information I never really got in history classes. Still, I really don't consider myself as any more knowledgeable about history than the average person. And yet, even I can see a second meaning to that old saying, a way that history is now repeating itself, because the people 'in charge' have not realized they were ignoring important history lessons.

Let's take a quick look at 4 events throughout history; the Magna Carta, the French Revolution, the Great Irish Famine & Revolution, and the Russian Revolution. In all these cases, it's my understanding that the great majority of the population had been severely oppressed by their rulers for so long that, out of desperation, the masses rose up and declared that they'd had enough. Most of these were successful; the Irish probably waited too long. After several years of being left to starve, they wouldn't have had enough strength to effectively revolt.

Now let's look at 4 more recent events; the Egyptian Revolution, the Lybian Revolution, the Syrian Revolt and the Occupy America movement. Again, the great majority of the population has been oppressed for years. Again, they've had enough.

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

Future Cars

I was listening to NPR the other day, and they were talking about future developments for electric cars. I know, electric cars haven't been around very long. But as the people on the radio pointed out, they have a big problem – the electric cord that lets them recharge. If you forget to plug in your car at night, you might not be able to go to work in the morning. If your employer doesn't have a charging station for you, you might not get all the way home.

Indeed, I briefly wished I could get an electric car a couple years ago, as a means of taking trips. But as I understand it, a charge would last about 4 hours, and then – if I could find a place to recharge – I'd be sitting still for 8 hours. It didn't seem like a good method of taking long trips.

One development they talked about was the 'recharging mat', which isn't a mat at all, but a piece of machinery that would set up a magnetic field that would recharge a car's battery. They seemed to think this possibility might become available within 10 years, since there is already a prototype being tested and used. That would be great! Now, after my battery is charged, could I pick up this 'mat' and take it with me? I could maybe live with extending my trip by driving for 4 hours in early morning, napping or otherwise relaxing while the car recharged, then driving another 4 hours in the evening before getting a hotel room while the car recharged again. Or better yet, what would happen if I turned this 'machine' on while it sat in my trunk or backseat, while I was driving? Would it recharge my car as the charge was being used to move the car? As long as it didn't make my head blow up via magnetic resonance, that sounds pretty cool!

Another possibility they discussed was imbedding recharging machines in the roads, each one sending a small charge to your car's battery as you drive. But that method is far from perfected, would cost an arm and a leg to get the machines into the roads.... No wonder they didn't spend much time talking about that idea.

Okay, this is not a floating car like the Jetsons had. But it's better than what I've been driving for decades. Hope I'm still around and able to afford an electric car when at least one of these bright ideas becomes reality.