What To Tell Family, Friends, & Neighbors So They Don’t Buy Another Gas Car!

No one should be buying a gas car these days. Here’s a list of reasons you can use to convince your family, friends, and neighbors to buy an electric car next time they need a new vehicle.

• Electric cars are a new, soon-to-be-dominant technology. Once you drive and own an EV, you will realize what an incredible paradigm shift they are. It is as big a shift as tube TVs to flat-screen TVs, landlines to smart phones, and Atlantic ship crossing to crossing in a jet plane. It’s almost as big as the shift from horse & buggy to automobile. Get with the program! Sale of gas cars will be banned in Norway next year and after 2035 in California! It won’t be long before the value of your gas car will be zero to everyone except antique car collectors.
• If you own an older car, once you feel the smooth-as-silk, rocket-like acceleration of a Tesla or other electric vehicle (and enjoy the advanced driver assist, navigation, and infotainment technologies of a Tesla), you will feel like you have arrived in the 21^st century. If you haven’t driven an electric car, you don’t know what you are missing. While Tesla in particular doesn’t have traditional dealerships, they do have showrooms where you can get a test drive. Better yet, I will give you a test drive!
• EVs are no longer bleeding edge technology. ~95% of new cars in Norway are electric. ~25% of new cars in California are electric. In my Utah neighborhood, there are 10 EVs for 95 families. Tesla has been making EVs for 16 years, the Model 3 for 5 years and the Model Y for 4 years — they’ve worked out all the kinks over that period.
• EVs no longer cost a fortune! Tesla has recently dropped its prices significantly. A new Model Y Standard Range (rear-wheel drive) on the Tesla website is $29,490 including the $7,500 government tax rebate. My neighbor just bought a gorgeous, practically new (model year 2021 with 15,000 miles on it) long range, 4-wheel drive, white Model Y (SUV) with white seats and Full Self Driving for $38,000. You can get a 2022 Tesla Model 3 with 71,000 miles at Carvana for $24,226. On the Tesla website, you can get a 2021 Model 3 with 48,324 miles for $25,300.
• You can make your own small contribution to cleaning the air in your city. On the Utah Wasatch Front, on the Colorado Front Range, in LA, Phoenix, and other Western subsidence regions, this is a particular problem. You can stop emitting microscopic particles that go directly from the lungs into the blood stream of the occupants of the car behind you.
• If you are convinced that global warming is an issue, an EV purchase will be your small (but probably most significant) contribution toward addressing this issue
• Teslas are by far the safest cars on the road. (Without a heavy gas engine under the hood, safer car design is possible.)
• You will do 95% of your charging in your own garage or parking place (no more trips to gas stations, no more oil changes, and no more emissions checks).
• With Tesla’s ubiquitous super reliable charging stations, cross-country Interstate travel is a breeze anywhere in the U.S. (all other car brands will soon have access to Tesla chargers, too).
• With a simple electric motor and single-speed transmission, your maintenance expenses should be much less than the expenses for a car with a complex internal combustion engine, complex automatic transmission, complex exhaust and emissions control system, cooling system, brakes, etc., etc. A new Edmunds report shows the Tesla car brand as having the lowest repair costs over a 10-year period. (Toyota was second.)

Some final notes:

• Don’t buy a plug-in-hybrid: With charging in your garage, and Superchargers for cross-country driving, a pure EV will fill all your needs. With a plug-in-hybrid you still have all the maintenance issues of a gas car.
• Have you driven an electric car? If not, please let me give you a test drive.
• Teslas are old and boring; how can I make a statement? A Tesla Cybertruck will stop traffic, but you won’t be able to get one for many months. A Rivian pickup or SUV (See Figure 2) will also stop traffic. I see them frequently here in Utah and they look great. There are many luxury EV brands like Cadillac, Porsche, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes, but they don’t stand out as much. If there are ~50 different electric car models available in the US this year, in two years, there will be ~100 different models available.
• If you want a true 3-row, 7-seat SUV: The Tesla Model X and Rivian SUV will fill the bill.
• If you want a pickup truck: The Ford F-150 Lightning, Chevy Silverado EV, and Rivian pickup fill the bill
• If you want a non-Tesla and plan to drive cross country: Virtually all brands will be able to access Tesla Superchargers by next year.

Don’t believe the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that you so often hear about EVs these days? Remember that as EVs become dominant, fossil fuel companies will have literally trillions of dollars in stranded assets. Legacy automobile companies will need to spend billions of dollars to convert from gas to electric. It behooves the fossil fuel and car companies to do everything they can to spread FUD to slow the inevitable transition from gas to electric as much as possible — and this is not a one-time or one-year thing. For example: In spite of what you have heard, EVs are 20 times less likely to catch fire as gas cars (10 years ago, my reliable old Toyota Camry caught fire and burned to a crisp on the highway). Electric cars are just as reliable as gas cars in cold weather. (Norwegians and Swedes will confirm this.)

Maybe you like the idea of an electric car but are not totally convinced it would be a good idea for you. Anyway, you have a perfectly good gas car and you don’t run out and buy a new car every year. However, when the time comes to replace your car, don’t buy another gas car!

Please find most of the electric cars available or under development in the US below.

• Tesla is selling by far the most EVs in the US, including Models S, 3, X, Y (which have been in production 4 to 12 years) and the Cybertruck. Tesla’s Class-8 semi truck is in limited production.
• Ford is selling its Mustang Mach-E SUV and F-150 Lightning pickup truck.
• Chevy is selling the electric Equinox, electric Blazer, and electric Silverado pickup truck.
• Cadillac is selling the LYRIQ electric SUV, CELESTIQ electric sedan, Escalade IQ, and OPTIQ.
• GM is selling the Hummer EV, Hummer EV Pickup, Sierra EV, and has a Cruise robocar on the way.
• Nissan’s LEAF had been replaced with the electric ARIYA.
• Toyota is selling the electric bZ4X SUV.
• Subaru is selling the electric Solterra SUV (it is a clone of the bZ4X).
• Volkswagen is selling the ID.4 SUV, with the ID. BUZZ van and ID.7 sedan to come.
• Hyundai is selling the Kona Electric, IONIQ 5, IONIQ 5N, and IONIQ 6.
• Kia is selling the EV6, EV9, and Niro EV.
• Mercedes is selling the EQB, EQS, EQE.
• Porsche is selling the electric Taycan, with the electric Macan.
• Audi is selling several different e-tron electric models.
• BMW is selling the i4, i5, i7, and iX.
• Volvo is selling the EX90, EX30, C40 Recharge, and XC40 Recharge.
• Lexus is selling the RZ Electric.
• Stellantis plans to roll out 75 EV models by 2030 (the Fiat 500e is coming this year).
• Honda’s Prologue EV SUV is now here.
• Rivian is selling the R1T (truck), R1S (SUV), and soon R2 (SUV) and R3 (SUV). Note: Amazon has 10,000 Rivian commercial electric delivery vehicles in its fleet (I see them often in my neighborhood).
• Lucid is selling the Air (sedan).

There are a lot of electric options on the market now.

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