Columnist: Car Buffs Who Don't Like Tesla Are 'Making Shit Up'

Aaron Cole
by Aaron Cole

A self-professed reformed BMW enthusiast says backlash against Tesla comes from car owners “stuck in the past” who consider grease under their fingernails as a “manliness” status symbol among “nostalgic car weenies.” Basically, military-grade trolling.

Mike Barnard, a writer at Slate.com, says that the time is coming for internal combustion engine fans to give up the ghost and get with Tesla because:

People who don’t like hybrid race cars and production supercars are saying that they don’t like better all-around performance—they just really only love things with cylinders and pistons, make of that what you will.

His point is mostly well made — despite resorting to pointless innuendos and a handful of quasi-Neanderthal references.

Barnard points out that technological advancements in electric cars have, in many ways, surpassed similar advancements in ICE cars. An electric motor, unencumbered with gears in a conventional transmission, is much quicker off the line; electric motors don’t lose nearly 75 percent of their energy to heat; and, Tesla’s cars don’t waste energy making noise.

And Barnard doesn’t have much patience for wasteful people any more:

In the future, there isn’t room for people who think that burning million-year-old dead plants and blowing a ton of pollution and carbon into the atmosphere in order to go slower is a good thing. There’s just room to put them out to pasture with old YouTube videos and maybe analog amplifiers to make the sound fuzzy and distorted.

Barnard doesn’t address the significant performance gap between Tesla’s electric cars and less expensive electric models from other automakers, nor does he address issues such as living and driving outside in rural areas nor price.

But I’m guessing there are a few more holes in his argument too that the B&B can point out.

H/T to David for pointing this out


Aaron Cole
Aaron Cole

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  • Pch101 Pch101 on Oct 13, 2015

    "Mike Barnard, a writer at Slate.com..." He isn't. Slate republished his response to a question about Tesla that was posted at Quora. His thesis misses the obvious: EVs have been around for over a century, and there are good reasons why they haven't gained traction during that time. When you figure out why that is the case, then it becomes easier to understand why Tesla is not a game changer. And if the issues that have held EV's back for more than 100 years are finally resolved, then Tesla will have little more than a branding advantage that won't be all that difficult for other automakers to challenge.

  • NMGOM NMGOM on Oct 13, 2015

    There are some inescapable issues with any battery-powered, EV-car technology: 1) A battery must carry along both "fuel" and "oxidizer", forming a redox reaction; whereas any combustion engine (internal or otherwise) can take advantage of the oxygen in the atmosphere. 2) All known advanced-battery technologies (not lead-acid) and electric motors use precious metals and rare-earth elements, which we are rapidly depleting, or single-sourcing from China, which has a monopolistic position. 3) Battery-powered EV's are typically much heavier than ICE vehicles of the same size and capacity, and typically suffer from poorer performance in handling and braking. 4) Battery-powered EV's are inherently much more expensive (not counting subsidies) than comparable ICE vehicles of the same size and capacity. 5) EV's are moderate-climate vehicles, whose comfort and endurance ("range") is optimum for temperatures between freezing and about 80 degrees F. These vehicles are not reliably suitable for long winter travels at, say, -15 degrees F, or for long desert travels at, say 100 degrees F. 6) As battery technology approaches limits, attempts to make super-capacitors as a substitutes have stalled by charge-density problems. It's just very hard to get electrons to want to be closely next to each other. 7) Recharging an EV has not been shown to occur in about 5 minutes, the typical time for refueling gasoline in an ICE vehicle with a 20-gallon tank. 8) The largest-selling vehicles in America are not cars: they are trucks. Three out of five of the best-selling vehicles were pickups from the three Detroit manufacturers. EV technology has shown no or little adaptability for use in trucks at this point, and I expect VERY rapid battery depletion from an EV-version of a Ford F-150 trying to haul 1,900 lbs, while towing a 10,000-lb RV 5th wheel or horse trailer. 9) ICE technology, surprisingly, continues to make strides forward, with upcoming innovations including variable displacement engines, ultra-sonic fuel "atomization", multiple-fuel charge systems, and laser-firing as a spark-plug replacement. Other advances include the use of bio-fuels that are CO2-neutral; or the Audi "E-gas" approach, which harvests CO2 from the atmosphere to make motor fuels. Additionally, large-scale use of CNG will also reduce environmental impact by a factor of two (CO2 production). Forced induction will be virtually universal, with BOTH supercharging and turbocharging on the same vehicle (as Volvo has demonstrated.) So, will fossil-fuel ICE's ever be replaced? Possibly, about 100 years from now, but it won't be pure EV's that does it. It may well be H2 fuel-cells; H2-combustion engines (as in BMW's "Hydrogen 7"); simple biodiesel engines that can run on renewable soybean oil; and even bio-butanol made from the fermentation of algae, to be a "gasoline" substitute. Pure Battery-powered EV's will still serve inner city, urban, short-travel, moderate temperature requirements. ======================

  • Master Baiter I'm skeptical of any project with government strings attached. I've read that the new CHIPS act which is supposed to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. is so loaded with DEI requirements that companies would rather not even bother trying to set up shop here. Cheaper to keep buying from TSMC.
  • CanadaCraig VOTE NO VW!
  • Joe This is called a man in the middle attack and has been around for years. You can fall for this in a Starbucks as easily as when you’re charging your car. Nothing new here…
  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
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