The History of Electric Cars and How Car Manufacturers and Oil Companies Have Manipulated You Against Them

The 1990 GM Impact electric concept car
Image source - Wikipedia: Fair use, Link

For as long as I can remember maintaining a car is more of an inconvenience and unexpectedly expensive. Particularly keeping the engine maintained. Not to mention having to actually drive to a service station to make sure you have enough fuel to go to wherever you're going. How many of us wait until the fuel gauge is showing nearly empty before filling up?

If you could have a car that is extremely low maintenance, low cost to run, and you could fuel up at home whenever you wanted, you would right? That's pretty much what an electric vehicle offers but so many people are strongly against these vehicles?

Did you know that electric vehicles (EVs) have been around since 1884? Not only that but also EVs dominated the roads over gasoline powered cars before said cars became quieter and easier to operate?

Did you also know that there was an EV revolution (almost) in the mid 1990s with GM releasing the EV-1 to unexpected acclaim before they took back the 660 cars they made and crushed them all in the desert?

More bizarrely, the people who leased their EV-1s wanted to buy their cars when the leases ran out but GM refused in favor of destroying the vehicles.

These are just some of the interesting facts I learned from ColdFusion's video How General Motors Killed the First Modern Electric Car (below). Dagogo Altraide, the man behind the ColdFusion YouTube channel is an independent researcher of all thing technology, business, and history based. The video essays on his channel generally seem well researched, balanced, an objective.

Tesla were not the first modern consumer EVs. ColdFusion's video tells the history of EVs and how car manufacturers and oil companies killed the modern industry just as it was starting to take off.

What stands out to me about this video is how the car and oil companies manipulated the public conversation against EVs. Which isn't particularly surprising however their arguments against EVs back then are very much the same as those being put forward now.

I understand concerns like distance anxiety. The fear of the car's battery going dead before the next charging station. It's a genuine concern but... remember when I mentioned waiting until the fuel gauge was on empty before filling up your vehicle? Distance anxiety is not unique to EVs and you get to know your vehicle's limits no matter what powers it.

Although the video talks about environmental concerns driving the EV revolution, I honestly think that doesn't sit that highly on vehicle owners checklist when it comes to owning a car. It's nice to know your vehicle is less damaging to the environment but who cares when you're sitting on the side of the road with a dead battery? You just want a car that can get you to where you need to be in comfort and maybe with a bit of style too.

For most of us city dwellers a modern EV will do just that. As charging stations become more prevalent and you get a better understanding of when to charge your vehicle, for optimum distance between charges, distance anxiety won't be any more of a thing than it is for gasoline powered vehicles.

I just don't get why people are so against the savings and convenience an EV can bring to vehicle ownership? Fewer moving parts to go wrong. Fuel up at home. Less servicing requirements. Modern battery technology requires that you'll only need to replace it once every decade (how many of you own cars for a decade these days?).

One thing I do know is no one's ever said "If you run out of gas in my driveway don't ask me to help you in any way to get more gas."

Not withstanding such a statement makes you sound like an a-hole, people who say this in protest of EVs act like a potential one time assist is going to leave them homeless from the recharge cost. If it's that big a deal ask for 'gas' money, like you would if a friend needed a ride and you were low on gas.

Better yet install an EV charger in your home and lease it out as a charging station now that public charging stations aren't free. Might be good little side income while the world is still transitioning to electric powered vehicles.

Comments

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de...

James Gunn's Social Media Monkeys Joke Was a Highlight of His Superman Movie For Me

B efore James Gunn's Superman Movie was released there was a whole rumor going around that the movie would feature monkeys on computers trolling Superman's social media, sparking much outrage. #supersh*t. I didn't know this was even a thing until just prior to writing this article. I did a search to see if anyone had posted a clip of the monkeys scene from the movie and got pages of discourse featuring videos and articles prior to the film. Most of it from Gunn detractors (let's say) seeing it as some kind of childish swipe at them... well not them specifically but, you know, those other people who have every right to hate on anything sight unseen. Anyway, I'm not going to give even one such example a link or air because it's kind of sad watching someone devote so much commentary to a throw away gag that is absolutely a nod to James Gunn's Superman trolls. The whole reason this post exists, is to say I loved the joke, because fourteen years ago, and I...

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...

I'm Joining the Illuminati Brotherhood By Personal Invitation of Hiltom Rothschild... Wait, What?

How special am I to have finally come of age (53 years young) and am now eligible to participate in building the world alongside other members of the Illuminati Brotherhood... Yes I've received the call by way of an email, which I'm sure is real because I had to translate it from the Dutch language and it was personally written by Hiltom Rothschild, one of the non-existent members of the Rothschild family (or perhaps deep undercover because Google has never heard of them?). A Transcript of the email below: To: etourist From: Illuminati Brotherhood Subject: Illuminati Broederschap (Illuminati Brotherhood) I am Hiltom Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family, one of the 13 families of the Illuminati brotherhood. I'm here to let you know that you've come of age and are eligible to participate in building the 🌎 world. It is a calling and a privilege to honor him with pride and gratitude as not everyone will ever be chosen by the LIGHT, many are called but few are ch...

The Worst Book I Have Ever Read - Gulp: Travels Around the Gut by Mary Roach

TET and Mary Roach's Book, Gulp . I 'm the kind of person who only reads one physical book at a time. For context I consider a 'book' to be anything over 100 pages of mostly text. Basically your typical work of fiction novel or factual biography. It's not that I can't read more than one book at a time, I just choose not to because I don't set a lot of time aside for reading. Maybe 30 minutes a day when I'm on a good run with a really engaging text. Little did I know that Mary Roach's Gulp: Travels Around the Gut *, a book of 317 pages (minus the Acknowledgments and Bibliography) would become a bottle neck for my reading for the next three and a half years. As such, I'm calling it the worst book I have ever read. Despite how long it took me to read, it is not a bad book in the slightest, and is in fact, quite light, somewhat entertaining, reading for a book that explores the science, and the resilience of the human digestive system. I'm no st...

Skateboarders Who Ever Dreamed of Dropping In on a City Building - Sandro Dias Just Lived Your Dream

Dias's drop-in from one of the lower platforms for practice. Image: © Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull I f you're a skateboarder living in a city you've probably looked at a building that has skate ramp vibes and imagined dropping in on it... well Professional Skateboarder, Sandro Dias didn't just imagine. The Perth Telstra Building as depicted in this fantasy poster print, Forbidden Skate Ramp by Harry Young. If you lived in Perth, Western Australia, any skateboarder who saw the top of the Telstra Building likely had the same thought about the ramp like quarter pipe at the top. Also, back in the day there was a classic skateboarding poster going the rounds that depicted Sydney as a literal skatepark with ramps built up, down, and over numerous buildings. Sandro Dias, who broke the record for the world's tallest drop-in on the 26th September 2025 by dropping in on a mega ramp built on the side of the curved façade of the 22-storey Centro Administrativo Fernando Ferrari (C...

Roary the Racing Car is Evil

Well okay maybe the lovable little red racing car, that has his own TV show, Roary the Racing Car , isn't evil but I do suspect he's into brain washing. Subliminally teaching everyone his life lessons. How else do you explain a fully grown adult, namely me, waking up in the morning from a dream about Roary? Before your mind begins to wander, it's nothing even remotely perverse (or maybe it is, depending on how you look at things), my dream was simply playing out like a typical episode of Roary the Racing Car. Perhaps we should back up a bit. In your best 'Big Chris' voice say "Come on Roary!" This all starts because I do my daily work out routine watching Judge Judy . Exercise is as boring as hell (oh dear, coarse language) so I watch TV whilst I go through my routine. At 3pm the most intelligent show on the box is, you guessed it, Judge Judy. Her show is only 30 minutes long and my routine is an hour so at 3:30pm I need something else to watch. Channel fl...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog