ENSLAVED BY THE STUPIDEST MACHINE OF THEM ALL

I wish I could say that when a machine takes control of our lives, it will be a supercomputer with artificial intelligence. For those who respect the intelligence and believe that the most powerful analytical tool is still a human brain, that would be scary news. Being overcome by a more powerful synthetic thinker that overdoes our ability to integrate, communicate ideas, make tools, think abstractly, and imagine the supernatural ...

Unfortunately the machine for which we work unpaid and have spent much of our income and time for a century now has none of these features. Moreover, it has absolutely nothing to reason.

That baleful machine is: The gasoline automobile.

WHY WE PAY $ 30000 FOR SOMETHING THAT COSTS ONLY $ 5,000?

Really you think that pile of iron, sleek and dapper should cost that much?

what would you think if I told you: that thing you wash every weekend with enthusiasm, to go to show off to your friends, that looks like a futuristic device actually costs no more than $ 2,000 or up to 5000 say, if you separately count the price of the engine, tires, steel, aluminum, plastic and electronics?

Wouldn’t you will be upset and think you are being stolen, cheated, you were sold something super-overvalued and they took advantage of your innocence?

Well, feel that way, take a sedative, fasten your seat belt, and keep reading.

THE DETROIT WISE BOYS FOUND A GOLD MINE

I do not mean to speak ill of those great men who invented and perfected this once powerful machine: Nicolas Cugnot, Karl Benz, Henry Ford, Rudolf Diesel, or Lee Iacocca. (Well, Lee Iacocca has my respect, but i think he does not fit on the list). I speak of those who took this noble industry and transformed it into the biggest scam in history. Any Ponzi or pyramid scheme pales in greed against this ambition.

To tell the truth, the real petrol vehicle dirty business began only about 40 years ago. Until then, the global automotive industry, was managed as a gringo business with Anglo-Saxon moral well placed. Manufactured machines met the requirements of moving people and goods. They were good, solid and simple. A gasoline engine, a super resistant transmission and seats comfortable enough.

It sold well, making good profits.

So they came to turn the car into a jewel. But without the intrinsic value of it. False Jewels that sparkled and dazzled much more than what they are worth. A huge advertising effort had the desired effect. From sponsorship of supercar racing to commercials with suggestive  runway models that you could seduce by just owning a car. The brainwashing process worked well, then move on to the phase of profits collect.

Since the invention of the automobile, technology has been improving and becoming cheaper. But car prices did not drop at the same rate of technology. And it is that companies that produce them were relatively few in the world. OLIGOPOLY, that's the word. A few manufacturers-vendors agreeing among them were raising prices to multiply their dividends beyond any privilege.

And they succeeded. Once the car was positioned as essential for which every citizen should pay 20 to 30% of their monthly income, the fertile imagination of these pirates continued coming up with amazing ways to extract more money from the pockets of innocent consumers.

Before the usurer and insatiable automotive business began, accessories such as lamps, mirrors, rings, ornaments, etc. were generic. That is, the headlights could be round or square, any brand served and low priced. Now each accessory to be replaced, must be of the same make, model and year of the car you have. Have you gone shopping those red stop light fixtures? Between 80 and 150 USD. Its true value plastic does not exceed 3 USD.

¿Spare parts to repair the engine? Any metal engine part easily will cost you 30 USD. That piece of metal that unfortunately has to be just the adecuate or else the engine would not work, does not have a value of more than 5 USD as metal casting and polish. Some simple cast iron pieces are still cheaper. That dramatic is the overpricing.

Automakers say that the accessory is expensive because they have to make a complete stock of spare parts and keep the stock for decades for every make, model and year, and that increases the cost. This fallacious lie leads us to the second part of the business.

As I’m sure automotive companies are going to tell me that they have to perform research and development activities to increase quality, economy and areodynamics of the automobile, let me clarify that ever since injection engines were introduced, the upgrades in car electronics  no longer increase efficiency of the fuel use. The improvements in conscumption are minimal every passing year because there is not mucho more to squeeze out of that clumsy way of fuel usage that gasolina engines have, that wastes 85%  (yeah, 85%, didn’t you know that?) of the energy it burns. As a matter of fact, car models of 20 years ago could still be produced today ant the difference in consumption and efficiency related to last models is minimal. However, automotive industries are interested in changing the models faster. Some of them do it every 3 years. Why? Because in this way, the consumer is subject to strong social pressure to “be cool” and then keeps investing in newer cars, but whose operation and usefulness are practically the same of a car from the 90s.

And these companies are interested in those continuous changes of car models because that way they sell more parts. Accessories of old cars are no longer good for newer cars and consumers have to keep buying new ones. That's the business. Change models so old spare parts become useless. Then buy all new.

THE PETROL ENGINE, THAT ANACHRONISTIC STATIONARY MACHINE.

We saw how each part of this obsolete and inadequate engine has a purchase price multiple times its actual value. Now we see that not only it is a toxic pollutant, but was used in automobiles  not to satisfy a human need but by the availability of oil and the possibility of a trillion dollar business. Originally the gas engine was not conceived to be used in mobile devices.

This technological fossil has 200 moving parts in the engine-transmission system. Some models have even more pieces. All mechanical engineer knows that every moving part of an engine inevitably suffers wear their by normal operation. And any part that is damaged and needs to be changed will cost the user minimally 30 USD, when as we saw that’s not worth 5. Not only that, but the engine is subject to four thousand explosions per minute. What machine can take that abuse? That is why all car starts getting to the mechanic shop just 3 years after been purchased brand new, and more and more frequently. In our innocence, we believe it is normal, And then we waste much of our lives to feed this insatiable guzzler who only gives us the privilege to mobilize, because anyways, we have to pay the fuel, parts, taxes, use of the street, overpriced insurance, etc.

And although in developed countries people change the car at the first sign of damage, in developing countries (90% of the world) we are obliged to keep our vehicles no matter what, reaching the workshop several times a year and increasingly, repairing, losing several days at a time searching and buying those overpriced parts and accessories, feeding those oligarchs who keep on unjustly receiving dividends from the effort of inventors from more than a century ago. And we can not get rid of this tyranny because there is no alternative. Unfortunately, the petrol automotive industry has eliminated any alternative like the electric car. Tell me if this is not a real slavery.

THE ELECTRIC CAR, THE REAL TECHNOLOGIC JEWEL

Why is the automotive industry is so afraid of the electric car?. In case you do not know, the first car in the world, built by Robert Anderson, Scottish, in 1832 and called Electric Carriage was indeed electric and not petrol. (Cugnot built a car before, in 1769, but it was steam powered. In fact it was a minilocomotive adapted to street use)

The electric car benefits the consumer in many ways. First: It’s not pollutant, and this is the most important point. But apart from this, let's see some advantages that are not that evident. We said that the engine of a gasoline-powered car has more than 200 moving parts all susceptible to damage from the explosive nature of its operation. An electric motor has only one moving part: the rotor. Therefore it is much easier to repair and maintain. In fact, the main failure of an electric motor, is simply that the winding burns. And rewinding a motor is something that even a normal person can do with common tools.

What happens is that the gasoline engine was never designed to be mobile. Not only was originally a stationary engine because the liquid property of gasoline requires it to be subject to a vertical gravity force, (and therefore in a car tilting and effect of movement affect performance) but the difficulty of maintaining an electro-mechanical-chemical explosive reaction continuously controlled, complicates the process unnecessarily.

In the case of the electric motor, most of its parts are not pieces of metal that must correspond to the model and brand year to run, but simple cables of different sizes. And the cables can always be cut and connected. Therefore there are no longer too many parts to buy, and any repair can be done (again :) with common tools. No oil change, and its battery can be recharged overnight via a 220 V common house plug. It is immune to shortages of gasoline.

The electric car does not need gearbox and clutch, much less costly and unnecessary automatic transmission. It happens that the obsolete gasoline engine, as primitive as it is, is subject to speed restrictions by explosions, and intake-evacuation of combustion gas. Therefore, this antiquated engine can only work with certain efficiency between 1500 and 3000 rpm. This unpleasant feature, forced its inventors to install gearbox, clutch and other accessories that complicate and increase weight to this already heavy contraption. In an electric car, which has a maximum torque at 0 rpm, acceleration is given much better and does not need any shift box, to run quietly to 0 to 40000 rpm without affecting performance. This technological marvel of a unique simplicity, thanks to its inventors such as Nicola Tesla, can give an electric car of serial production accelerations from 0 to 60mph in 4.9 seconds. Outperforming at the quarter mile run, a Porsche 911, Testarossa, and almost all sports car of serial production. And the best thing: with far fewer devices and operating cost. Electronically governed, an elegant switching circuitry can accomplish that feat by just gently pressing the accelerator.

And now the feature that the autor thinks is the best of this machine, which thanks to Elon Musk, has entered the mainstream and will soon replace the odious gasoline guzzler: It is completely silent. Unlike the noisy combustion engine, and that's why precisely this one should use large silencers to eliminate noise of the thousands of explosions per minute it needs, and these silencers also take away mucho of its power, reducing further on its efficiency. The electric motor is so quiet that you have to put artificial sound so that people realize that is circulating in the vicinity. Now let me say something to thick-heads who believe they appreciate a Laborghini Murcielago, a Ferrari F-50, or any "supercar" we only see on television and think it would be a dream to have in their garages. If you drive one of those petrol locomotives, you will notice that inside the cabin you hear only engine noise. You can not hold a conversation with the passenger (or better, a female passenger) or talk on cell phones or listen a good piece of rock because of how loud this primitive machine works. Please let us dare to demand more, is a true turn-off imagine running around the motorway through Malibu beach in California without enjoying Jan Hammer’s Miami Vice theme as it should be. And if they tell me they like to hear that noise they call "engine roar", let me tell you do not know anyone who has a CD or Pendrive with that sound or who want to hear those noises when running on the road in his little compact car.

THE ABILITY OF INDUSTRY TO CORRUPT THE ELECTRIC CAR

The traditional automotive industry has already puts his hands on the electric car anyway to also benefit from this business. Why electric cars are priced even higher than gasoline cars if their components are much cheaper? Because they are applying the same formula that made them rich with the petrol car. Design every accessory for each model and year. Something totally unnecessary. They are turning electric cars into jewels and the world is falling into their game again.

But do not misunderstand me, I don’t hate cars (and I’ll appreciate if you can prove me wrong in this article). I am one of those who enjoys the power of a V8 off-road cruising through a quagmire in a remote area where I can just trust my friend Roderick for help if something goes wrong, it is a pleasure that this gasoline machine has been able to give me, but maybe at a cost much higher than it should. And do not forget that just because an activity gives us great pleasure, it means that we will continue doing everything the same old way. Anyway, batteries of electric cars are just developing and will spend some time still to equate autonomy and power of a truck or a 4WD Jeep. But in compact cars, is now a reality and instead get homesick for firing the gasoline engine, that should have gone away for good half a century ago, let’s embrace the future and rather not let the traditional automotive industry corrupts this clean and new technology whose price is quite low but industry wants to continue charging the super high prices that they get for the gasoline-powered car.

It is interesting that some of the new manufacturers of electric cars like Tesla have not been founded by traditional industrialists emerging from the corrupt gasolina automotive industry, but by young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, mainly electronic engineers who realized that they could provide an efficient alternative and better engineering. In the near future, if all goes well, many university students and young people in general will not have to buy a car. They will assemble it in the way that they do currently with their desktop PCs. That way they will buy a generic chassis at a hardware store and incorporate all the components according to their needs of power, speed, consumption, etc. Just like when they assemble a  PC and at a much lower cost than buying one brand new. Also, the common citizen can perform many more repairs to an electric car parts because he won’t need all original brand parts, and will be able to solve most of the misconnections and misfits with common cables of different measures, and using power tools commonly used.

You must perform some conscious effort to free ourselves from this conspiracy that has produced billionaires and super-rich at the expense of the savings of citizens all over the world.