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Imagine …

• Growing up with and learning to drive in electric vehicles;
• Then taking test drive in a stick-shift gasoline car …
• What would shock you at that experience
• The resulting disdain for internal combustion engines.

Tibor Blomhäll imagined …

Having heard so much good about petrol cars, we decided to test drive one.

They are said to combine cheap price with long range and fast charging.

A winning formula on paper – but how are they in real life?

Blomhäll then walks us through a series of shocks and concerns that someone who had only an electric (Tesla) car experience would have when going to consider buying a gas car from a dealer:

• Buying through “car repair shops as middleman” as conflict of interest — do you really want to buying from someone who has an interest in the car not working and requiring repairs?
• A “very “pushy”” salesman, working “very forcibly” to secure a sale.
• On starting, “the car’s whole body vibrated as if something was broken”.
• “The petrol engine consists of literally hundreds of moving parts” with tight tolerances which makes it easier “to understand why it is car repair shops that sell the cars”.
• The ride is jerky and “shook violently” at 40 kmh.  Changing gears is a skill required with gas cars, not electric ones.
• “The constant sound of the engine” disturbed listening to the radio, couldn’t be turned off, and was “very distracting”.
• The brakes are mechanical and only generate waste heat — giving “no regeneration of gasoline back into the tank”.
• When at a stop, “the engine continued to run and the car vibrate … and to burn gasoline.”  “Can it really be true?”
• The gas station was a desired stop to “try the famous super-fast charging of petrol cars”. That visit provides multiple shocks:
  • “Gasoline is highly carcinogenic, smelly and flammable liquid …”
  • Price Shock:
    • Fueling “was extremely fast … the counter that showed how much it would cost was spinning so fast that we could hardly keep up with its pace!”
    • Shocking that there are “no free gas stations”, like at home or a convenient business.
    • “Apparently you have to … drive to the gas station to recharge your petrol car at extortionate prices … there are no alternatives!”
    • “There are no gas stations … where you can fill up more slowly at a cheaper price.”
    • “Petrol car costs Euro12 per 100km! …. electric cars are comfortably charged at home every night for Euro2 per 100km”.
    • As to gas cars, “We began to understand why they are so cheap to purchase — operating them is extremely expensive instead.”
• What about accidents — from “the cast iron block” engine in the case of a collision to “we have seen on the Internet hundreds of pictures and videos of burning gasoline cars.”
• And, the car has “a kind of chimney for engine exhausts … noxious gases … unhealthy to breathe in — and smells very bad”

And petrol cars are allowed to emit these harmful gases in the middle of our cities?

The whole experience lead to a changed ride home, looking

with completely different eyes at our poor fellow commuters, we still had to put up with their gasoline cars.  But soon it will be their turn to trade up, too!

At Tesla Club Sweden, Blomhäll has produced ann interesting read, in itself and for thinking about transportation, that also provides a good lesson on the power of ‘thinking outside the box’ to question business as usual practices