Friday, November 8

You Hear That? That's the Sound of a Million Laughing Pinto Ghosts

source: Inside EV’s


Third Tesla Model S Fire In Past 5 Weeks Breaks Out After Accident (Updated – Collision With Tow Hitch)

18 hours ago by Jay Cole 101
3rd Tesla Fire In Just Over A Month Happened Wednesday, November 6th Near Nashville, TN
Having recently gone through two “fire incidents” after an accident in the past 5 weeks, a third fire Model S has caught fire under potentially a similar condition.
And while the first two fires happened after the Tesla plug-in sedan had taken some serious damage, this Model S looks to have suffered less damage before the occurrence – although we would stress patience in jumping to any conclusions before an official investigation report has been released as this is BREAKING NEWS - that we will update as new information becomes available.
UPDATE (Nov 7th 10:39 EST):  The Tesla Model S in question reportedly struck a tow hitch on the road, and ”hit the undercarriage of the vehicle causing an electrical fire.”




Nikola Tesla is turning in his grave from this four wheeled fiasco that bears his name, Henry Ford II’s skeletal remains are wearing a grin, as the last of the negative comments about the Edsel fade away, and the ghosts of millions of Ford Pintos are laughing.


Remember the Ford Pinto debacle?  A few Pintos blew up from rear end collisions, a bunch of money grubbing lawyers bilked Ford for millions and millions, and in the process, forever labeled the Pinto as a “death trap”.


Now it’s time for logical people to look at all of this with a clear mind. First of all, if the production time span and the number of units sold, for the Pinto was identical to that of the Tesla, how many fire related deaths involving Ford Pintos, do you think you would have heard about?
None. That’s right none.


The Pinto had a production run of ten years and sold over three million units.  Tesla has been selling about 1700 cars a month, and even the most optimistic predictions have sales figures for  2014, pegged at 40,000 units.  Perhaps, a more realistic prediction would be about half of that.  Especially, if the associated fires have as negative impact on sales, as they did for the Pinto or Pontiac Fiero.


Either way, Tesla sales will never approach Ford Pinto sales.  If they’re lucky, their total vehicle sales for their entire production run, might approach the number of Pintos sold in any given year in the early ‘70’s.


Why?  Because the Pinto was a better car than the Tesla in almost every way. First of all you have a safety issue.  The Pinto so far has proven to be a much safer car.  When you consider the total amount of deaths and injuries that could be blamed on the Pinto’s design, and divide that by the total number of miles covered by all Pinto’s produced, you get a number that is so infinitesimally small, you might wonder how Ford ever lost those lawsuits.  It is unlikely that enough Teslas will ever be sold and thus, miles covered to make a statistically significant comparison.  That being said, several have gone up in flames, even though the number on the road remains only in the tens of thousands.  Even with air bags, anti lock brakes, and the like, statistically speaking, the Ford Pinto so far, has proven to be a safer car, at least in terms of miles driven per newsworthy incident. I would not be at all surprised if there were still more Pintos than Teslas on the road today.


Over three million Pintos were sold and the government didn’t have to bribe people to buy a Pinto.  The only way Ford could have ever reached those sales figures, was if they were offering a car that the public wanted, and a large percentage of those sales were from repeat buyers.  A government subsidy, in and of itself, proves that the Tesla is not a car that the public wants, and with a $17 trillion national debt, that subsidy is in jeopardy.  If the subsidy dies, so will the Tesla.


The Pinto was a better value.  In 1971, a new Pinto cost about $2000.  In today’s dollars that would be about $11,500.  A new Tesla cost between $60 and $100 thousand, depending on whether you get the base or “performance” sedan.  Performance?  Starting at $60K, they should all be “performance”.  Just what do they mean by “performance” anyway?  You give me a Pinto and $10,000, and I can build a car that can easily beat a Tesla in the quarter mile or any other type of race.  Better yet, if we took a Tesla and a bone stock Pinto, and drove both to a dragstrip 300 miles away, allowed any reasonable amount of time that most people would expect for typical refueling, and raced, the Pinto would win.  That is, assuming that the Tesla could even make it there, which leads us to the next point, reliability.


If you were to ask people the definition of reliability, many would say that it is freedom from malfunction, but reliability is more accurately defined, as being able to be used at any given time, at a moment’s notice.  The Pinto, like all other normal cars, could be fired up and used at any time, regardless of how much it had been driven the previous twelve hours.  After a day of driving, a Tesla has to sit and charge over night, so even a brand new Tesla, that is used for long, daily commutes, is essentially “broke down” one third of each day, every day.  


Now imagine that you own a Tesla, and you just returned home from a long trip.  Suddenly your child falls ill, gets injured, or you have any other type of personal emergency that requires that you leave the house and drive somewhere.  You better either have a friend nearby, that will let you borrow his car at a moment’s notice, or you could have a Pinto for a second car.  You can fire up the Pinto and go.  


Soon you will realize that maybe, the Pinto should be your first car.  Did you ever see someone on the side of the road that has ran out of gas?  Sucks to be them, but at least all they need to rectify their problem is a gas can and a ride.  You run out of charge on the highway in a Tesla, and it’s an entirely different matter.  A good Samaritan with a gas can, will be of no value to you.


Tesla envisions numerous quick charge stations scattered across the country in the future, that may reduce charge time to as little as twenty minutes.  Big deal.  Can you imagine it taking twenty minutes to put gas in your car?  Ask the owner of a diesel vehicle what’s their biggest inconvenience, and they will probably mention the lack of fuel availability relative to gas.  Take that problem and multiply it by what? ten billion? and you begin to understand just one of the items that all by themselves, are deal breakers in widespread use of electric vehicles.


Now let’s assume that someone has a Tesla, their driving schedule never interferes with its range and charge time limitations, and it doesn’t burst into flames.  A Tesla is very complex.  Who’s going to service or repair it.  Just take it to the nearest Tesla dealer right?  What if the nearest Tesla dealer is over 300 miles away? (A reality in many parts of the country.) How are you going to get it there?  I doubt that there is any mechanical problem that a Pinto could have, that I could not fix myself, and all the parts that I would ever need are either in stock at the local auto parts store, or can be ordered and received in days.  Teslas, and all other electric cars, will never be able to approach the real world reliability of the Pinto.


Pinto’s held their value better than Teslas.  A clean Ford Pinto will currently fetch more than it’s original retail price, but of course, much of that is due to inflation.  A new ‘71 Pinto cost just over 10,000 in today’s dollars.  How much could you lose?  An article that attempts to say that Telas hold their value well, states that a five year old Tesla roadster has lost between $50 and $90 thousand from it’s original selling price.  Even when painting the rosiest picture possible, a Tesla roadster, loses the original Pinto’s selling price worth of value, every month.


Last of all the Pinto was much more environmentally friendly that the Tesla or any other electric car will ever be.  Electric cars ultimate source of fuel is coal.  Not the most environmentally friendly fuel out there, and their true fuel economy is no where near as high as you might expect.  


For reasons that we have already discussed, there will never be enough Teslas or other electric vehicles sold to produce any measurable impact on saving fuel or the environment.  On the other hand three million Pintos replaced cars that were often lucky to have fuel economy in the double digits.  Teslas and all other electric cars will never come close to saving the billions of gallons of gasoline saved by all those Pintos.


The Tesla is “new”.  The Tesla is “different”, but so was another car introduced by the Ford Motor Company in the late fifties.  When one considers public acceptance, maybe it should have been called the Edsel II.


Oh yeah, it has been well documented and proven that a Pinto can withstand an attack from Cujo.  Whether or not a Tesla could, remains to be seen.


6 comments:

The Conservative Wife said...

Well, I'll be honest. I did not know that Tesla made cars. I only ever know of him through the electricity thing. But with a price tag like that, no wonder I didn't know. Plus, I don't shop for electric cars. I'm a Texan and you know we like our big, gas guzzling trucks. The Pinto however, I know of. I remember when I was in grade school and one of my older sisters was in high school. She had a Pinto as her first car. God it was ugly. Even back then. Horrible yellow and the back end was all fat and round. (Guess I shouldn't diss on that type of back end now that I am older) And I had completely forgotten that it was a Pinto in Cujo. Creepy movie. I had nightmares about big dogs attacking for weeks. But, I agree, I would take a pinto over an electric car anyday.

neil schnurr said...

So would I, and when you consider the fact that the Pinto always makes the lists of top 10 worst cars ever made, it shows you how bad the Tesla really is.

Rick Lakehomer said...

Neil, a fine fine post and i am stealing. Yeah, I had friends that owned Pintos, Vegas, Pacers, remember the AMC Pacer and they were all better than these POS electric cars. My favorite is the Smart(dumb) for two cars. Talk about a faggotty, queer car! I love to harass any stinking environazi car. I drive a'95 supercharged Buick Riviera and just because it is a big car, liberals, green sucking, boot licking tree huggers hate it and me, right off the bat. Heh, too much fun and too easy. Great post and I am looking to get a big 4x4, American and I do not care about MPG as I do not drive much. Older Suburban, Travelall, and my dream rig 1965 4X4 Dodge Power Wagon Carryall W200/300 with a 318. Too poor for one of those so i will settle for Suburban, Jeep, Tahoe or Durango. Got the Rivvy up for sale or trade and we will see.

neil schnurr said...

Thank you. I have a soft spot for all those cars you first mentioned. I grew up near Kenosha, WI, so i am very familiar with Pacers and Gremlins. There were so many of them around, that they didn't even look weird to me. V-8 Gremlin X's are bad ass. My friend had a Pinto with a 302, and I had a Vega with a 350. We could smoke Corvettes, Trans Am's, Porches, or anything that came along, with those cars, and we had less than $3500 invested in them.


The point of my post is, that even from a tree hugger's point of view, (if they were to think things through, which liberals never do) electric cars suck, and also, to encourage people to think for themselves, and not immediately accept the common talking points and propaganda about electric cars, or anything else.



My viewpoints concerning cars are as "off the wall" as my political opinions, and if you enjoyed this post, be on the lookout for the new pages coming to Golden Geese. "Right Side of the
Road" and "Practical Prepping",

Rick Lakehomer said...

I had a 1964 dodge 383 bored out 20 over that ended up with 590 HP and ran 11.00 flat in the 1/4 mile. I lost three races in it to built 426 hemis. Fun car, total sleeper. My favorite was a '70 Barracuda with the 'cuda' package. 340, tri-power which I ditched for baby thermoquad, Racer brown cam, custom TBT racing headers and exhaust system, 3.55 posi quick change rear end which was used at the strip and changed to 4.11's, 727 loadflite trans built by Winters and B&M Hydro transmissions, dual points distributor, electric fuel pump, trans and oil cooler, red w/black leather interior. This car ran 13.30 all day, handled better than anything I have EVER owned and returned 21-23 mpg with the 3.55's in the butt at 70 MPH. Z-28's and Boss 302's were totally humiliated.



Your points are well sounded out here. Will re-post tonight

neil schnurr said...

Here's two sites that have pictures of cars, the way they SHOULD look. No 24 inch wheels here.

http://70sstreetmachines.tumblr.com/

http://upintherear.tumblr.com/

RINO Blog Watch (Blog)

RINO Forum - User Submitted News

RINO Forum - Elections

Recent Posts

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Views (since Blogger started counting)

Blog Archives

Content.ad - Widget 13

Click Here To Become A Conservative Blogs Central Blogger

Back to TOP