Life is a conundrum in the literal sense. I say this because when it comes to cars, it really hit the head of the nail, much to the dismay of the small race of environment enthusiasts.
Because the very mode of transport that they claim is green and will help keep Johnny polar bear and his children happy, is not doing anything to save the world.
But the governments, too, could not have been more wrong about conventional petrol engines that they said are the work of satan and that only because of them that Chennai did not receive rains last time around.
Recently, I was speaking with an engineer who works with a top manufacturer in the country who make performance cars and he said turbo chargers actually ruin fuel consumption.
He said when we give too much boost, with rising revs, a turbo engine consumes more fuel than a naturally aspirated engine because of reasons that engineers know very well.
To put it simply, sending more cool and compressed air to aid efficiency of an engine, actually ends up producing more power and less importance on the fuel bills.
Now, this is completely against what the governments put forward, because they came up with tax plans to restrict automakers to a particular engine capacity for a car’s size, thinking that economy figures of cars will increase.
They even stated triumphantly that their ‘testing’ figures back them up. But the problem was that authorities test a car on a rolling road, inside labs that have no resemblance whatsoever to the real world.
Nevertheless, the government stuck to its plan, much like how it kept saying demonetisation was good, despite it clearly not eradicating black money.
The result? People started tuning cars, because turning the wick up a turbocharged engine is fairly easy, and made road-going monsters that in the real world are fairly reliable and are totally useless in economy figures.
Having established that, let us turn our attention to think about electric vehicles where there is a similar problem, which when spoken about loudly, will increase the temper of many a government the world over.
With electric vehicles, the most important thing that people stated to make them popular, was that they are clean and green. However, a small search through YouTube will bring out millions of videos where the cars are not used in any way to save the world.
The instant acceleration of an electric car has made it the perfect machine to drag race, ironically! That must really get the politicians worked up, don’t you think?
Moreover, because the car’s battery power drains up quickly when raced, it needs to be recharged and that takes hours and that electricity is produced by burning coal or splitting a Uranium atom in a power plant.
It is interesting how people use the very instrument brought in by the government to dull their senses to heighten their adrenaline rush. Such is the power of human resilience, wit and the strong will to break the rules.
It is not like people are a raging lot who do the opposite of everything put forward. They still drive on the left side of the road and still pay their taxes. It is just that when the government comes up with an idea, it should be well thought out.
It all brings me on to the conclusion, where I can only say that the governments can try telling people that eating egg will block their heart valves leading them to die in an instant, but people would not bat an eyelid. Why? because eggs are delicious, that is why.
Let me put it this way. You can only change a person’s eating habits if you provide better alternatives. Asking people to only eat leaves is one thing and nobody will do that. But ask them to cut down on meat so that they can live longer, then a profound change can be made. Force will be met with force, people.