It's Andy Fish!

A few years ago I bought into the hype of electric cars. “No more trips to the gas station and paying $5 a gallon (shows you how many years) — I’m in!”

That was my initial thought. Shares of Tesla were trading at a very reasonable amount so I bought in. My wife’s aunt had ordered a Tesla and after a lot of hoop jumping it was on it’s way– in five months.

That was Red Flag #1.

After the excitement of the concept of no longer spending money at the pump wore down I actually looked further into it and lo there be problems a plenty.

COMMON SENSE – Electricity ain’t cheap and it ain’t exactly plentiful. Around this time or a little after Texas hit a cold spell and the Blue City’s in the Lone Star State found their switch to wind and electric power left them high and dry– or actually cold and wet. They lost power for several days while they tried to fix the problem.

The range of an electric car at that point was 2-300 miles- that’s fine for everyday driving– I myself drive less than 50 miles a week since I work from home– but if I decided to take a road trip? Well that created some challenges.

The recharge time was too long. No more pulling into those evil gas stations, filling up and going on my way– now it’s pull into a friendly happy charging station and sitting and waiting 3-4 hours to get enough charge to get me to the next one.

Red Flag’s #2, 3 and 4.

Tesla introduced the Cyber Truck. I admit I thought it was a joke when I first saw it. No way could a design team put this out as a consumer model. But real it was– really ugly.

I took an electric car out for a test ride– and there was no more revving engine, so more growl as I shifted gears. Instead it felt and sounded like I was heading to the eighteenth hole 22 strokes over par and looking forward to the club house ham and cheese sandwiches. Never in all the time I’ve driven a golf cart have I thought “Boy I’d love to open this up on the highway!”.

So I dumped my Tesla stock– long before it was fashionable and luckily when it was profitable because my Number One rule of investing is I won’t put money into something if I won’t use it (case in point– all these Cannibas Dispensaries– my investor group split when those hit MA and the guys who chose to invest made a quick buck– those of us who refused to support such a thing didn’t care and we chuckled a bit when those who kept their investments in lost a lot of money last week when it was announced many of these facilities are closing because of overkill. I don’t know- I drive by a few and there’s seldom more than two cars in the parking lot–).

Anyway, back away from digression– I dumped my Tesla Stock because as I told the car dealer who was trying to push me towards a hybrid when I bought a new car last year– I will never buy an electric car. No government is going to mandate me into buying something that doesn’t work– we’ve already gone down that road with Romney/Obama Care.