“Darling, is the wind blowing? I want to drive my Tesla.”

I am told that at the recent CPAC 2020 gathering the President told a well-received joke aimed at the latest “Green” demands that we forgo dirty carbon-based energy and rely solely on wind and solar: “Darling, darling, is the wind blowing today? I would like to watch television, darling.”

I thought about that joke when I turned on to a frontage road last Sunday. There was Tesla S blocking the road with the flashers on. It looked like it had been there all night; icicles had formed from the body down to the road and there was snow around it. When I drove by about an hour or so later, it was still there, much of the snow now melted.

But this time, the Tesla S was plugged in! (Had to hop out and take a picture for you.)

As you can hopefully see, there was a Tesla plug attached to an extension cord that crossed the frontage road and ran up the hill (I think to an auto business of some sort), so the batteries could recharge.

I looked up (new) prices for the Model S 85D—they start at about $75,000 less the $7,500 electric car rebate the owner got from you and me to buy this luxury car. And the Tesla plug? A bargain at $520!

That tax rebate, by the way, expires in a few short weeks unless Elon Musk and the Green Lobby get to Congress. (Tesla has been the primary beneficiary of the rebate, but all the car makers are now heavily invested in producing electric cars to meet new state and federal emission standards even though they have not sold many electric cars. For this reason, do not be surprised if the taxpayer-funded rebate gets renewed. Talk about a misallocation of capital and tax dollars.)

A jump is not possible with a Tesla, right? But why didn’t the owner get the car towed rather than leave it on the road, vulnerable to getting hit? We had quite a snow storm last Saturday night—those flashers might not have stopped a car from plowing into the rear of the battery-filled Tesla.

I looked around and found lots of stories suggesting that hitting an electric car can be quite dangerous if the lithium batteries catch on fire (e.g. fire balls, dead drivers).  And stories saying battery powered cars were no more dangerous than regular cars. In any event, hitting a parked car is not on my bucket list.

The New Green Deal and other unreasonable demands for relying on “renewables” should be the subject of humour but also derision and sober debate. Doesn’t it feel like the Green thing is just so decadent with tax rebates for luxury cars and freshman governors and congresswomen alike just making things up (e.g. where do they get no cars in 10 years, and 100 percent renewable by 2050? Both are equally ridiculous ideas. It is just like the $15 minimum wage. They just make the numbers up.)

As my colleague, Isaac Orr, has reported this week, good energy policy is no joke. When we get this wrong, real people get hurt. If you missed his excellent report on “Green” energy policies, you can read it here.