You must stop tweeting Mr. Musk. SpaceX is dead. Turn your attention to something more urgent for the love of all things holy. Make me a stupid car, Mr. Musk.
I don’t mean it is just dumb. It won’t drive me to Whole Foods or make me a delicious beef bourguignon. I don’t mean dumb, stupid as a box full of rocks. My car shouldn’t tell me when my tires need to be inflated. It will tell me when the tires are empty. It could even be the outside temperature. If I don’t recall the weather conditions when I got in, then I shouldn’t drive.
My 2017 Chevy Traverse was just destroyed by one of my teenage boys. (He’s fine. The Traverse isn’t. This car was already way smarter than it needed to be. My wife and me had to find another car. Things have only gotten worse in the last six years. Listen to me, Mr. Musk or anyone else with a factory. You will sell at most a billion cars the next year if you follow my recommendations. It will save democracy.
Do not bother to design a new vehicle. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. Find the specifications from a 1974 International Scout or a 1978 Monte Carlo SS. To get better mileage, make the engine lighter. You could even make it electric. I don’t care; I’m Catholic. (Yay, Laudato si’!) Use something that won’t rust in six months for the body. (Boo 1974 International Scout. Add seatbelts or airbags to make it even more comfortable.
Nothing. That’s all.
How much would such a car run you? Perhaps $10,000? Maybe twice that amount? Fine. Okay.
My age is part of my appeal. Now that I’m 50, I find it hard to believe I can do more with my time. It is irritating to have an iPad built into my dashboard. If it’s cold, I can turn the dial to warm up the car. One dial. There are only fifty-eight buttons. Each person has a different zone. I have nine children. (Yay Humanae Vitae! They are used to being ignored.
Worse, it is me who is cheap. My kid took it apart six years ago. However, we only owned it for about one year before the dashboard light started screaming at me about the tire pressure system. My mechanic told me that the sensor was defective and would need to be replaced. It would cost $300. Are you kidding? For less than $300, I could equip each of my children with an old-fashioned tire gauge and put them in service as a NASCAR pit crew. It was too expensive to fix, and I didn’t care about the 14 other things that the stupid dashboard lights were complaining about. Since my poor child was blinded from the constant glare of all the warning lights that I refused to address, there’s a good chance he destroyed the car.
We lost one of these super-smart keys several years ago and were constantly in fear of losing them again. The new set cost $300, including the fob. It seems that everything on the car cost $300. Before I paid $300 for a key fob, I was ready to hot wire the car.
Everyone has their individual preferences. What car you drive is irrelevant to me. However, you need to be aware that your choice for a smart vehicle will only accelerate the arrival of a dystopian future in which busy-body dictators will dictate where and when you travel.
Bloomberg reported recently that Ford Motor Co. had filed for a patent to protect its technology. The technology could remotely turn off your radio or air conditioner, lock you out of the vehicle, or cause it to beep if your car payment is late.
Continue on in that instance. The Traverse wouldn’t stop telling me $300 to buy a sensor that I didn’t need. You can add a constant beeping feature. What about when I’m driving to the local brewery distributor to pick up a 30 pack of Hamms’s beer and the car says, “Hey sir, your wife said that you should go to gym instead.” Perhaps I’ll be driving to Megadeth (I said I was 50), and the car will tell me, “Sorry sir. Dr. Fauci requires that you stop at this vaccination clinic.” You don’t have to be bothered by the sound of your car alarm, sir. We can continue once you have finished eating that donut.
Although it sounds absurd, it is not. Although people from all political stripes have their issues with America’s car culture, they all agree that it is rooted, at least partially, in our desire to be independent. Tom Wolfe, in his 1965 Esquire piece “The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson”, was the first to emphasize the idea that “the car symbolised freedom, a slightly wild and careening emancipation form the old social order.” Yes!
That’s it? Cars can be a little wild. Caring. Ford does not need collection agencies.
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Red Dawn is a prophetic force, and if it has any power (and it surely does), one of my children will soon have to take off the radiator cap on my car to cool it while fleeing from Russian paratroopers. Maybe it will be Chinese tanks. I don’t care if Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping are the ones controlling the situation, remote steering them to certain death in town. I’m not going to let an American politician turn off my ignition because I’m heading to a protest that they don’t support.
I want a car that is $10,000 in price and does not beep at my every move, incessantly or not. I’m more than happy to check my tire pressure by myself. Heck, I’ll even drive it.
Save America, Mr. Musk. Give me a car that is really stupid.
