The push to exchange gas for electric in transportation is an idea that has ironically placed the proverbial cart in front of the horse. While the problems of an inadequate power grid, too few charging stations, short range, high costs, long recharging times, and battery fires are real, there are two gigantic issues looming that rival them all.
Current state and federal gas-tax regulations siphon off more than $53 billion a year in tax revenue; for reference, about 67 cents from every gallon of gasoline purchased in New York, and around $1.18-per-gallon in California. Those taxes account for more than a quarter of the expense of road and highway costs around the nation. No such system of taxation exists for electric vehicles. For every ten-percent reduction in gas vehicles being replaced by electric, a resulting decrease of more than $5 billion in tax revenue will occur. Add this to the long list of issues that the rush-to-electric crowd has failed to address.
But the second concern is a direct threat to our freedom, our autonomy, and our God-given right to be left alone, the abuse of which fits nicely into the leftist wish-list of control.
The electrical connection from charger-to-car doubles as a stealthy surveillance tool. Every interaction records the time, date, location, mileage, etc. “Gassing up” now means interfacing with the computing system of the vehicle to potentially deliver any and all of the data contained in the vehicle, which are extensive. Charging at home, with the advent of “smart meters,” consumers can “program” their vehicles to charge at off-peak power times in order to save money — this same smart meter of course is also recording the time, date, duration of charge, and potentially more data from your vehicle of which you won’t even be aware.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is already pushing the envelope, taking advantage of the surveillance aspects of the modern-electric vehicle, and simultaneously solving the lost-revenue problem. Whitmer proposed using GPS technology to track driven miles data in order to tax driving based upon usage.
While most people don’t think of lost freedom when it comes to these technological issues, it is time we did. Incrementalism is the hardest-to-identify poison because it kills you gradually and slowly, while providing what seems to be a nice service that makes your life easier and better.
Is it really a stretch to believe that if you can summon “Siri” on your smart-speaker when “she” hears “her” name then perhaps she’s eavesdropping on you? If electronics in your car can call 9-1-1 after sensing a crash, is it conceivable that the same technology can know how long you were parked in a bar parking lot to the interest of the local police? If you show up between charging stations and your speed was above that posted, is it foreseeable you might get a ticket by mail? Is it hard to fathom a jilted police captain searching license plate camera databases to identify his wife’s lover?
Every time you link your phone to a vehicle’s blue-tooth connection in order to use hands-free cell service, that vehicle’s “infotainment system” dumps the entire content of that device: call logs, contacts, texts, pictures, all of it. Think of that the next time you rent a car or sell yours to a stranger. You’re unwittingly leaving your digital DNA all over the place.
The final piece of this tech-driven plan to eliminate personal freedom completely will be the replacement of our currency with a digital version. Once this happens, (God-literally forbid), the oversight will be complete. Not only do we know where you are, how long you were there, and how fast you were going, now we know if you ate red meat. (Expect a call from your health-care-provider.) You drank too much alcohol. (Time for some counseling or your insurance rates increase.) Didn’t show at the gym again? (Report to the doctor.) Expect “social scoring” schemes to develop, of course for your own good, just like the Chinese system.
Those who seek to control people will suggest that you write this off as a dystopian, hyper-paranoid tale of things to come. The Covid era was a beta-test on our reactions to authoritarianism and fear-mongering, and we failed miserably. This has emboldened those who seek to control us. That good ol’ incrementalism isn’t noticeable until it’s too late. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
What a cruelly ironic harbinger of things-to-come to know that that iconic symbol of freedom and mobility, the automobile, might well serve as the intrusive and unrelenting sentinel of the beginning of that next era in American life that sees the sun-setting on what it means to be free.
Bob Kingsley is a Binghamton-based writer, who also blogs at bobkingsley.com.
Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.