Yesterday I posted one of my several hundred anti-Volt screeds. The most recent one had the following points.
- The Volt is so ridiculous that I can’t help myself. The way all those subsidies have produced so little is just begging for it.
- In recent testing Volts caught on fire…Ha ha ha.
#2 is something of an issue. In all actuality I don’t care if a Volt catches on fire. I just like making fun of Volts and catching on fire is hardly a good thing. But one of my six loyal readers took me to task:
“honestly I had thought better of you, sir, than to attack the Volt on a false premise: namely, that they “burst into flames after crash testing”. Not that, strictly speaking, that is false — three of them did — but it implies that this is normal behaviour of the Volt in a crash, which it is not;”
He’s right! Part of being adaptive is recognizing fault in oneself. I enjoy bashing the Volt so much that I went ahead and let a cheap shot past my atrophied ethics circuits. So I’ll back up a bit and clear the air:
“I, Adaptive Curmudgeon, did wrong by making light of the Volt’s ‘crash test fire’ issues. I don’t really care about them. There are many reasons to ridicule a Volt but fire hazard is not among them. We’re accustomed to gasoline in a car but, because they are alien, are a bit oversensitive about batteries. That’s unwise and I shall henceforth go back to bashing the Volt for more realistic faults.”
Wow! I feel refreshed and honest; like an anti-politician. I might as well double down and mention another of my favorite whipping boys; the compact fluorescent light bulb. I don’t believe I’ve ever fretted about the mercury in them but mercury is a common gambit used by incandescent fans.
“I dislike CFLs whenever someone tries to force me to buy them. Partly because they’re inferior in certain situations but mostly because I hate being bossed around. However the tiny risk of mercury from a broken CFL is a tempest in a teapot that bores me. Whenever I bitch about CFLs I’ll let the mercury thing slide.”
Yeah! Clean slate baby!
A.C.
P.S. I should also add that the Volt (and the Leaf and even hybrids like the Prius) are victims of my high expectations. Ever since the oil embargo during the Carter years I thought an electric car could be a “neato” compliment to the nation’s vehicular population. Now, after all these years and endless subsidy, they advertised the wimpy uninspired blandness that is the Volt in the middle of the Superbowl as a sort of vote buying for Government Motors. I just plain have never forgiven them. When I was a kid I imagined an electric car as “awesome” and instead it’s overpriced, weak, and as inspiring as tapioca. Maybe if I’d expected a $40,000+ crappy little commuter-box I would be more forgiving.