Read to the end for a post about pasta shenanigans.
I've written a bunch about electric vehicles (EVs) here on TimeMachiner. They've intrigued me ever since watching the film Who Killed The Electric Car? which chronicled the efforts of GM to bring an EV to market... to them take back every lease and crush them all. That movie took place in 2006 and boy have things changed.
Here in 2024 it's not like EVs are at a tipping point... yet. People love their trucks and vehicles of choice here in America. It's no secret we're a car-focused country and a lot of that is due to the Interstate projects of the 1950s. But EVs are growing and the momentum is there. And as of late last year, I finally joined the ranks of EV owners. No, it's not a Tesla.
When people ask me what it's like to drive an electric, the first thing I always say is "fun". Driving goes from a normal get-around task to something where you feel reconnected to the car. This is mainly because of the instant power and response of the car when compared to its gas counterparts. The next best thing is never needing to buy gas. It's quite strange after decades of keeping tabs on gas prices to find the best deal that I'm more and more falling out of touch with that whole thing.
Last year was a whirlwind culminating in a job loss and going through the hell of looking for a new job. One saving grace was my old 15-year old car waited until I regained employment to make it over the tipping point wherein repairs far exceed the costs of replacement. Late in '22 and into 2023 it was starting to need more care but soon the list got longer. Eventually I was looking at likely six to ten thousand in repairs and of course there's no guarantee that something wouldn't go next.
It was time to say goodbye.
Luckily I did have a new job to support the endeavor. And while I really did not want to spend a chunk of money on a new car with a job that was only a month old, the reality is that I need a reliable set of wheels. And so I landed on an EV.
Driving electric is fun, exciting, interesting, and it has the included benefits of all that 'good for the planet' stuff. And while the environment is important, my EV certainly won't undo the impacts of private air travel, factories, or the things giant companies do.
The EV is for me because I love driving it. Sometimes it simply feels like any other car with a (for me) giant leap in in-car tech since the build year of my prior car. Having modern stuff like CarPlay, heated seats, and adaptive cruise control are fantastic. I'm fully aware almost all cars have that now. But when it comes to the fun of driving, running on electrons as a fuel source is second-to-none.
I have some updates for you Time Traveler members reading this.
First, a new homepage is coming to TimeMachiner and you can preview it here. The password is available on the member homepage under "Sneak Peeks" after logging in.
Voting is now open for future topics. If you're a member at the Doc & Marty level you can find and vote on what you'd like to see me cover. Again, this can be found after logging in and visiting on the member homepage.
Thanks for reading. Now, onto the rest of today's issue.