Many things in modern life are quite strange, and often seem to be nonsensical — it’s simply that people are used to them that they continue. But how do people who aren’t intimately acquainted with these things/experiences see them? An interesting question. With that in mind, the folks over at Tesla Club Sweden decided to give the experience of purchasing a normal gas-powered (petrol) car a go….
As you can probably guess, the piece is fairly funny. Anytime that I go for a while without having to deal with salespeople (and for that matter, gas stations and gasoline), I forget how weird and unpleasant the whole experience is, only to be reacquainted with the experience once again when the situation calls for it. So I’m guessing that it’s probably a very strange experience for those being exposed to it for the first time.
Using highly refined liquids — made from mush that’s essentially just dead sea animals that have been rotting and being condensed for hundreds of millions of years — to move a large chunk of metal and/or plastic around at high speeds is, for that matter, all on its own quite weird when any thought is given to it….
Anyways, here are some highlights from the Swedish article:
We sat us in the loaner car at the car salesman’s office. Automakers do not sell the cars themselves, only through independent car repair shops as middlemen. It may sound like a bad omen to buy the car from a car repair shop that you want to visit as seldom as possible. But you apparently can’t buy the car directly from the manufacturer but must go through such intermediaries.
One could hear the engine’s sound and the car’s whole body vibrated as if something was broken, but the seller assured us that everything was as it should.
The petrol engine then uses a tank full of gasoline, a fossil liquid, to propel the car by exploding small drops of it. It is apparently the small explosions that you hear and feel when the engine is running.
The petrol engine consists of literally hundreds of moving parts that must have tolerance of hundredths of a millimeter to function. We begun to understand why it is car repair shops that sell the cars – they might hope for something to break in the car that they can mend?
We asked if the constant sound of the engine -that frankly disturbed us from being able to listen to the radio- could be turned off. But it couldn’t. Very distracting.
…
The seller looked very puzzled at us and explained that it is not possible to refuel gasoline cars at home, and there are no free gas stations. We tried to explain our questions, in case he had misunderstood, but he insisted that you can not.
With this in mind we ended up in a traffic jam and was horrified that the gasoline engine continued to burn these expensive gasoline drops even when the car was standing still or moving very little. With gasoline vehicles it is easy to run into cost anxiety – the feeling that the car literally burns up your money! No cheap home charging and no regeneration of gasoline back to the fuel tank when braking sounds like economic madness – especially given that all gasoline must be imported from abroad.
True enough. There’s a lot more for those interested (the link is up above). Worth a read if you’re looking for a laugh.
Image Credit: Cars via Wiki CC