Well, well, well.Reality bites.Mr. Guilbeault, will be disappointed. Glum Greta might shed tears. Trudeau, well, he'll just go surfing.The water cooler story was sobering for the greenies. A setback, you might say.According to media reports, Hertz Global Holdings, the US rental car giant, is planning to dump around a third of its global fleet of electric vehicles.(EVs)The company cited a slump in resale prices and a massive surge in repair costs. Hertz said it would sell around 20,000 EVs this year and reinvest the proceeds to buy traditional gas-powered cars. EVs currently comprise around 11% of its overall fleet, and the sales add around $245 million in depreciation expenses to its fourth-quarter earnings.The company had earlier stated a goal of having EVs account for around 25% of its global fleet by the end of this year. It has agreements in place to buy around 100,000 cars from Tesla and a further 175,000 from General Motors.However, the move to move the EVs could put those plans into question."Expenses related to collision and damage, primarily associated with EVs, remained high in the quarter," Hertz said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.Which raises the question: If a big firm such as Hertz cannot make it work, because of high repair/collision costs, how in heaven's name could you or I make it work?How could we even afford it? And how high would our insurance costs be?EVs are admittedly cheaper to run than gas-fuelled cars — there are fewer components, such as alternators, radiators, filters, belts and hoses.But, they still require up-keep, of course, such as headlights and taillights, wiper blades, brakes and suspension parts and dealer servicing.And those dealers, are just waiting to soak you. Like a spider in a web, an EV web, waiting for a victim, uh, I mean customer.But what really bites, is the cost of a potential wreck.According to the Vancouver Sun, a Vancouver electric-car owner was shocked to learn that minor damage to his car’s battery required replacement of the unit and was quoted a $60,000 repair bill — more than the list price for a new car!The owner was told the damage voided his warranty on the 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5, forcing him to file a claim with ICBC, which simply wrote the car off due to the extraordinary cost, the report said.Auto journalists Zack and Andrea Spencer said the case raises big questions for EV manufacturers around replacement costs and repairability of batteries as Ottawa shoves new rules down our throats to speed up EV adoption.“The story is, people are buying these cars not knowing what the actual cost of the most important component of the car is to replace,” Zack Spencer said.The Trudeau 'mafia' wants at least one-fifth of new vehicle sales to be electric or plug-in hybrids by 2026.That will increase to three-fifths by 2030 and then by 2035, all new vehicles offered for sale in Canada will need to be zero-emission vehicles.A green Valhalla, awaiting us all, apparently. No mention of virgins, unfortunately!Many dealers, of course, think that's totally crazy.They may not say it on record, but all it will do is boost prices for both new and used gas-powered vehicles and the latter will be harder to obtain.A nightmare scenario, but par for the course, from this out-of-touch Liberal government. And by out of touch, I mean, out of touch with reality.Consider this: in the olden days and even nowadays, the neighbourhood mechanic could pretty much fix anything that went wrong with your car.And they would cut you slack, tell you what needed to be done, tell you what could wait. In other words, they were fairly honest.That can occur at some dealerships, but not all. A friend of mine who worked for a big Calgary dealership on Macleod Trail but quit in disgust, said all those older guys at the service desk were let go, and replaced with younger sales types, who were told to maximize repair costs for more profit.In other words, pressure customers into spending more. Hate to say it folks, but that's how some dealers roll today. As my dad said, if you go to a dealer, you are paying everyone's salary, from the execs, to the receptionist, to the snakes in suits (sales staff), to the mechanics, to the waiting room expresso bar and the top-shelf loaner cars.Also, be warned, not all mechanics are trained to work specifically on electric cars. This more or less forces an owner to rely on a dealerships' service departments, with parts and labour typically costing more than your neighbourhood garage.If they can nail you, they will nail you. Welcome to Steven Guilbeault's 'Green Nightmare.'And as we now know, if the vehicle is in an accident and its battery pack is wrecked in the process, the cost of replacing it could well total the car for insurance purposes.Some manufacturers, such as Ford and GM, said they were making their battery packs easier to repair. However, in many cases, technicians lack the diagnostic data they need to evaluate even minor damage, so vehicles still have to be written off.Also, there are no standards or regulations to determine whether repaired batteries can even be put back on the road.Personally, I wouldn't touch an EV, if I had a Glock pointed to my head — I could never afford one nor could I afford the insurance.I just replaced the brakes on my Altima, and the sway bar. Total bill was just over $1,200. And my garage cut me some slack.Try paying for that, on a pensioner's wage.We just aren't there yet, folks. The tech has a way to go, before prices come down.I don't have anywhere to plug it in, anyway. There are only three EV plug-ins in my condo parking garage, and they are all taken.The way to go, for the infamous "just transition," if I can use Trudeau's socialist term, is hybrids. That is the way to go.I have yet to meet an Uber driver, whether in Paris, Istanbul, Cairo, Washington D., or even good old Cowtown, who does not like his hybrid car.They work, they are relatively affordable, and they're efficient. This week the temperature hit -30C. Imagine you had to get somewhere, via the Deerfoot 500 — a road where driver evil is exalted and not a single cop in sight.You have to crank up the heater to stop from freezing to death. Then, well, you might to listen to the radio.All the time, you are watching your power decline. Use any electrical doo-dad or display and watch the power level drop. You make it to where you're going, but now, at the end of the day, you have to head home.Now, you need your headlights on and the heater. But you decide to shut off the radio to conserve energy.You sweat it out, feeling what's known as 'EV anxiety,' the fear of running out of power as you sit on the Deerfoot.But hey, you look so cool, in your high-tech EV SUV. Maybe not so cool, while you're waiting for a tow truck, though.— with files from Forbes
