Using our brains to make sense

This photo has nothing to do with today's blog posting but just thought it was a nice shot to share

 We live in the Information Age and that is a challenge. We have at our fingertips information about good things and bad things, positive things and negative things, truths and half-truths, propaganda and outright lies. There never has been a better time to use our brains. Does this information make sense? Does it require investigation? What are the sources?

Did you see the story about the electric car that caught fire? I know you did because it was everywhere -- on TV news, all over the internet, radio talk shows. There was video.

BOY DID THAT CAR BURN!!!  Cue the Psycho music -- REEP REEP REEP!!!

So there you have it, proof that electric cars are dangerous, too dangerous. There is no choice but to stick with gasoline-powered vehicles.

Well, says my brain, do gasoline vehicles catch fire as well? A few clicks of the keyboard and guess what? Just in Canada there are 10,000 gas-powered vehicle fires annually, reports Transport Canada.

No Psycho soundtrack with this info.

A week or so ago the big news was about a man with an old electric Nissan Leaf who couldn't get a new replacement battery for it. REEP REEP REEP!!!

Have you ever heard of a gasoline vehicle where you couldn't get a new replacement engine? Gee, I think I have heard that, when I think about it.

Then there was the Consumer Reports story that electric vehicles have far more problems than gasoline ones. (Psycho music again.) This got so much press I expected to see it written on the sky. There was a follow-up story. The problems were not with the electric propulsion part of the car but with all the gadgets they have. 

I didn't see this next story on TV, and I bet you didn't either. A 2023 survey by the Canadian Automobile Association of Canadian electric vehicle owners found that 97 per cent would purchase another EV. Talk about satisfied! 

I did a little exercise last year involving what we were paying for gasoline, the cost of electricity, and the borrowing cost of an EV. We really only drive one vehicle in the winter -- a 2016 Dodge Grand Caravan. We drive it to Thunder Bay about five days a week. It's 50 kilometers or 30 miles each direction. Our gas bill was $600 a month. Had we been using an electric vehicle that we charged at home as just about everybody does, our monthly vehicle energy costs would have been $100. 

The financing cost of an EV was $600 a month. So, for $100 a month more than we are currently paying just for fuel we could own a brand new vehicle. 

Of course, gas prices were high at the time I did this calculation but that brings up another point: gas prices are nothing if not volatile. When Putin attacked Ukraine the price of gas jumped 50 per cent almost overnight. Not the price of electricity. It is the epitome of stability. It increases, sure, but usually with the cost of inflation, not because oil barons are using any excuse to make you pay through the nose.