The summer is upon us, and I have the keys to the most perfect BMW i3 on earth — the Holy Grail, a Galvanic Gold, Giga World-interior’d marvel from Leipzig. I also have the keys to my old 144,000 miles 2014 BMW i3 workhorse. But both of those keys are being hung up for much of this summer, because I want to enjoy my gas cars. Here’s why.
Gas prices in California are hovering around $5 a gallon, which is a lot, but sort of manageable. I remember in 2008 when the dollar was worth way more and gas prices were in the $4 range; things aren’t quite that bad in California, but they’re getting close. Look around the streets, even in nicer parts of town like Santa Monica where residents can afford a new EV, and you’ll see that most vehicles are still gasoline-powered.
In fact, if you look at year-to-date sales of new vehicles in California, you’ll see that not quite 25 percent of cars sold in 2024 are zero-emissions vehicles (which includes EVs, PHEVs, and fuel-cell vehicles). You can see in this plot from the California Energy Commission that the Tesla Model Y has played a huge roll in cranking those figures up:
Still, a quarter of all new sales doesn’t mean a quarter of cars on the road — in fact, based on a cursory web search, it seems like just around 5 percent of registered vehicles in California are electric. Yes, 19 out of 20 light-duty vehicles on the road in California burn some sort of fossil fuel.
So the EV era has begun, but it’s not yet in full swing, and while I’ve been obsessing over BMW i3s for the past year or so (see above), I’ve come to the realization that I should enjoy my gas cars while I can. I’ve been driving all sorts of EVs for the past year or so — the new Cybertruck, the Lexus RZ, the Fisker Ocean, the Lotus Eletre — they’re awesome machines. Objectively superior to gasoline counterparts in so many ways. But there’s a similarity in the way they all behave — almost like driving a bunch of gas cars with the exact same engines. The torque curves and the sound feel exactly the same. And there are chassis similarities, too, with all EVs having their considerable heft between the axles, and all featuring fully independent suspension.
There’s something exciting about hopping behind the wheel of a car like a front-engine, front-wheel drive, high-revving four cylinder car like a Honda Civic Type R and realizing: My god, this is so different than, say, a rear-drive flat-four Subaru BRZ or a rear-engine, flat-six Porsche 911 or a V8 E90 BMW M3. The engines — the way they sound, the way they make torque, their location (and thus weight distribution). The variety is awesome.
I realize I’m probably preaching to the choir here, and that my “DT’s random Saturday thoughts” blog here is hardly profound, but it’s recently dawned on me: Why rush to driving EVs? I’ve got the rest of my life to drive those.
And while, sure, I don’t own a Civic Type R or a Porsche 911, I do own a 1966 Ford Mustang with a honkin’ V8 engine. I have a 1991 Jeep Wrangler with a torquey inline-six. I have an old truck with a straight six and a four-speed-on-the-floor. I’ve got a ZJ I’m working on — one with two coil-sprung solid axles that offer off-road articulation like no EV suspension ever has.
My point is that, there’s going to come a time when driving gas cars isn’t easy. That much is inevitable. When 100% of residents in certain neighborhoods drive EVs, they’ll begin to see gas cars driving through their neighborhoods as threats to their children’s health, and what argument can one make against that? You can’t. Gas cars will be banned from certain neighborhoods, and it’s inevitable.
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What’s more, on a more macro scale, I could see gas prices climbing, especially here in California, and more and more restrictions placed on these vehicles. In 30 years, it’s possible that driving gas cars in LA won’t be allowed. We’ve seen similar things in certain cities in Europe — it’s only a matter of time before our beloved ICE steeds are shunned by the masses, and our ability to enjoy them on public streets becomes throttled.
It’s not going to happen anytime soon, but I’m 32 years old. It’s possible I won’t be able to drive my Jeep J10 freely and easily on public roads by the time I hit my twilight years. And here in California, it’s possible I’ll have a hard time piloting that old truck by the time I hit the big Five-Oh. So I’m going to enjoy these gas cars while I can. Gas stations are plentiful, fuel pricing is expensive but not insane yet, and because gas cars are in the majority, folks aren’t sneering at my fuel-burning machine, plotting for ways to keep it out of their neighborhood.
I’m gonna listen to the burble of that Ford 289 V8; feel those crisp shifts just “snick” into place as I row through my J10 and Wrangler YJ’s manual transmissions; marvel at my ZJ’s incredibly well-spoken suspension (that’s a terrible play on the word “articulate”). These vehicles offer experiences that EVs just can’t, and while I think my BMW i3s are, objectively, my best cars, there’s really nothing “objective” about joy. And, while I still can, I’m going to wring every drop of that from my gas cars.
2024 is my summer of stick shifts, smooth straight-six torque, and V8 grunt.
And in the distance you will hear the silence of the Golden Eagle’s seized engine as it fails to spin
Glad to see you coming to your senses. 🙂 I was afraid all the gasoline in your blood was being replaced by electrons and making you not quite right.
My apologies if this sounds mean. Reading it again an hour later, it is not funny like it was in my head. If I could edit or delete I would.
It read fine to me. Don’t fret it.
He works with Adrian Clarke, you’re fine.
I was mowing the lawn earlier and somebody riding a hog went by, running a little rich, and I was instantly transported to the track side at Road Atlanta. It goes so much deeper than it might seem at first!
Did they say this?
“I can get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog!”
Given that I was wearing earplugs, I at least can’t deny the possibility.
Whenever I hear the sound of someone riding a hog nearby, I’m always instantly transported to the parking lot of a suburban Westin during the Mid-Atlantic Association of Dentists convention.
When it’s 30 to 50 hogs – feral or otherwise – that’s something else entirely.
Your Mustang is a lot like me. It’s old, it needs food, fluids, and air. It expels waste and bits are falling off here and there. It’s a living, breathing thing with a soul. I just don’t believe an electric appliance can match that. You’ll like it, but you’ll never love it. The future is electric and I sincerely wish good luck to you that can’t avoid it.
I know my Mustang is a dumb car, I know it’s awful ergonomically, I know it’s expensive on gas, I know it’s irritated more than a few neighbors BUT to stand by it or sit in it idling, hear and feel the lope of the motor and smell the slight whiff of gasoline is an experience an EV just will never be able to match. EVs have a place in the world, just not in my driveway!
If you have a driveway you can have an EV as a DD AND a stupid Mustang weekend toy.
Maybe he keeps his EV in the garage where the charger is.
Maybe but if (insert preferred pronoun here) is like a lot of Americans that garage is too full of junk, er treasures to park a bicycle, much less a car.
As a Southern California gearhead I’ve come to the same conclusion, and have endeavored to wrench on my cars less and drive them more while it’s relatively easy to do so. Even though that still means $100 to fill up my ’85 LTD or ’04 Sequoia. I’m thankful I can afford it.
Sounds lil’ like selling the Golden Eagle has kept you up at night.
I definitely think it’s a great idea, you’ve got a great collection of cars and you went through the effort to drag them all to LA with you, it’s gotta feel good to get out and remind yourself why.
I’m never going to be in a rush to own an EV, heck, I don’t even think I’ve driven one yet, but the time will come when it’s the sensible choice to make, but I’m going to be burning through a lot more tanks of fuel before that day comes, especially once the VK hits the streets.
I don’t need soap operas anymore; I get all the drama and excitement I need from the i3 saga.
At least you’re not sucking in tetraethyl lead, I say go for it.
Experience it while you can the, California of legends, in a fossil fueled automobile.
In the future have something to tell your grandkids or some random stranger at a Nevada coastal bar.
“That guy says he was the head of an automotive publication before the Motor Law.”
“Let me tell you about my uncle.”
Does he have a country place that no one knows about?
He does. He says it used to be a farm.
After the sun goes down and the scent of children’s sunscreen wafts away, you’re guaranteed to meet someone interesting to talk to in the bars of Playa de Winnemucca.
in 2008 I leased a 535ix wagon. had had a 325xi for a long time prior to that. great car, except for the thing I can’t talk about. gas was so expensive there was no traffic, almost worth it. I’m still waiting for the horseless carriage review.
Good on you David, you have some classics to enjoy, and that’s where gas cars should really stick around is in the personal enjoyment area, like horses did when cars took over, except without all the inhumane “let’s juice them up to a win a race with a tiny dude whipping them” way…, but I digest.
One of my bucket list items is to take a nice sporty car or converitble up the PCH, the Mustang would probably fit that bill nicely, grab some in’n’out burger on the way, take in some northern beaches or get some rice-a-roni in San Francisco.
I’m gonna keep driving my old gas-powered BMW’s for as long as I can. I have enough spare parts to keep em going, so as long as gas is available I’ll keep listening to my straight-6 as I bang it off limiter, what a glorious sound.
Project idea: BMW i3 platform and interior wearing the bodywork of a 1950s-60s economy car. Body swaps have been done before plenty of times, but I’ve never seen it tried with a hybrid/range-extended EV. Surely there’s a salvage title i3 out there somewhere that could make a good inexpensive donor, and then perhaps a Nash Metropolitan with trashed mechanicals to provide the new bodywork… The commuter car you want combined with the commuter car you used to think you wanted!
The i3 would probably work better as a full drivetrain/tech/interior swap than a body swap. The main structure and crash cell of the i3 is built out of carbon fiber. Not super easy to impose another body over.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully support swaps. My main project is a 1971 Travelall on a 2003 Tahoe. I have a couple others I want to build in the future as well. But the CF body makes it pretty hard.
I guess you’d have to find a way to cut it down to a carbon fiber tub and then figure out how to bolt the body on top of that, but yeah, probably much easier to just transplant all the mechanicals from the i3 to the other car.
This is a super long way to say “I don’t want to drive the old BMW, and I don’t trust these Yahoo’s out here near my new Goldie Locks”.
Love to see that truck get a COMPLETE re-do. Get it shiny and new looking, running strong. Be a cool car in an area it’s hard to actually be unique, since money can buy anything and theres plenty of that near you. Also, a great truck and worth doing regardless. Get some sponsors to kick in some stuff, or maybe call your old Jeep buddies and get some cheap parts?
You are in LA. There is not a big difference between seasons except a little bit of rain in the winter.
Drive ALL the cars ALL year!
LOL we have two seasons, Summer and almost summer
This is nothing anything against what David is suggesting as likely inevitable (it probably is), but the distinct possibility of ICE emissions as an assault on our collective health, or those of “the children,” is fallacious at best. Do I agree, in general terms that exhaust emissions are detrimental to health? Yes, but reason and context is important.
How can we put that higher on our objectives in the fight for societal health when we have an epidemic of forever chemicals in our food, clothes, and cookware? Or an FDA that regularly fails to see the forest for the trees (check out sunscreen as an example) to protect us? Or while Jetsetteing 1%ers contribute to massive CO2 pollution for what’s, at best, discretionary, frivolous travel? How about the pollution from fires started by poorly-maintainted utility infrastructure? I could continue, but my point is made.
Meanwhile, we’re supposed to fret and fear over the cumulative effects of PZEV and California emissions? Please.
It doesn’t have to make sense for it to happen.
You’re absolutely correct.
You do have to keep in mind that Los Angeles is a pretty unique corner case. A basin bordered by air fronts on the mountains and the ocean means that smog gets trapped there basically indefinitely. My Internal Combustion Engines professor started his course by singing to us the praises of the effects of CARB in curtailing LA smog back when it was first implemented in the ’70s. He said as a kid growing up there before CARB there were days you couldn’t see the other side of the street due to the smog.
I agree with what you’re saying in that regulations and limitations on ICE vehicles are often shortsighted and unfairly affect lower income demographics, but if there were ever a place that would benefit from fewer tailpipe emissions LA Basin is basically candidate number one. Even with modern emissions it’s still a hazy stew of a population center.
Those are valid points you make, that makes sense.
I saw LA from the Griffith Observatory in 1996 and it was still kind of gross, with a brown layer above the homes. It’s a pretty strong memory for me because I took a photo (and had a print made). I saw it more recently from up high, and it’s much cleaner still.
The Santa Ana winds can blow out the smog, but then you’ve got to deal with all the meek little wives that feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.
At least that’s what Raymond Chandler said.
I grew up in LA in the 80s and can vouch for what your prof said. It was seriously bad. We had days when we couldn’t go outside because the air quality was so poor, and you could literally cut the smog with a knife in downtown. The difference that CARB standards and emission controlled gasoline have had on LA’s air quality have been huge.
I came to say the same thing. People may claim that driving a gas car is detrimental to their children’s health, but I can most certainly argue otherwise, and be right too.
I’d probably hang onto the electrics for commuting/shopping and save my fuel babies for evening/weekend cruises. Your J10 will (still) be a bitch in rush hour. Not that there aren’t pleasures to be derived from driving a beast that scares the bejeesus out everybody in traffic and parking lots. Thirty-two? Man, it’s still your time to be young and fuelish. Enjoy summer, especially top down in the Wrangler!
Go even further and drive super lightweight gassers. Only energy dense fuels like gasoline allow for 1500lb vehicles with 700mile range from small tanks.
No EV is going to be able to provide a lightweight fun handling experience without cheating on range or burning through tires.
There is something so incredibly fun about throwing little tiny cars around. On tiny 165w tires it still out handles larger cars around on-ramps.
Get something small my man.
Glad to hear you’re going to spend some time enjoying your good ol’ ICE machines for a while.
I’m curious how banning ICE cars outright in a city like LA would work, though (not that I can’t see them doing something like that, which is a big part of why I’ve no desire to live in CA). I would think that in order for that to happen, the secondary/tertiary market for EVs, and the longevity/repairability of their components would need to improve significantly. Places like LA have a good number of people who are driving 10-20 year old used cars as basic transportation because it is what they can afford. What happens when they buy a cheap used EV but then get smacked with a bill three-times what they paid to replace the battery just to keep the thing going?
While I wouldn’t rule out any city doing something stupid, banning petrol engines in cities makes no sense from the POV of air pollution – clean, modern petrol engines basically only emit CO2 and water, neither of which are bad for local air quality. (Banning them altogether as radical climate action also makes no real sense, but for entirely different reasons; by the time it makes sense, it won’t be necessary.) I would have thought that by the time cars with ICE power are only for enthusiasts, there’ll be few enough of them around that it just won’t matter.
For some perspective here, London’s ULEZ doesn’t allow older petrol engined cars (without paying £12.50 a day), but cars over 40 years old are exempt, because there are so few of them around that emissions are insignificant.
Technology will evolve and so will the ability for the aftermarket to repair them. There’s already a cottage industry of people repairing EVs or using their parts for other projects. It won’t happen overnight, but 10+ years ago driving cross country in an EV would be a pain, whereas today I know several people who have done it multiple times without issue as infrastructure improves.
This is one of my favorite articles you’ve written lately. I think we have had this conversation, EV’s are fast, quiet, smooth rides, which while fast is lacking any visceral rewards to driving them. I have a Chrysler 300, v6 which I ended up with because my Brother In Law’s lot didn’t have a Charger (fell in love renting one). Same engine, same chassis, same almost everything. The Dodge was a lot more rewarding to me as a car guy. I liked the tougher leather seats, always worry that my buttery supple leather seats will puncture, the soft ride is great for freeway cruising but I’d rather a firmer ride for freeway on ramps. The exhaust note is quiet, everything is basically numbed. I thought that I was old enough for a luxury car, but that’s just not true. I’d rather drive my beat up 1997 GMC Sonoma 4cynder, 5-speed. It has alot of character, poor character but character.
Good read, but when are you going to start enjoying a Pontiac Aztec?
Did anyone enjoy the Aztec?
From what Aztek owners tell me, yes. Looks aside, they’re actually darn good vehicles with excellent packaging. Very practical and pleasant to live with. The only bad thing about the Aztek was its styling, otherwise it was fine.
Well, as good as any other 2000s GM minivan……… They are probably very quiet and smooth, but I have a hard time believing that they aren’t straight garbage underneath.
Aaah, the joys of procrastination.
Apparently, David has been having a hard time finding an Aztek that is both in decent condition and cheap.
California has clearly gotten to him. David can still sleep in a crapbox Aztek! :p
I think we need members-only Shitbox Showdown of all Azteks and David has to buy and sleep in the one we choose. All Azteks chosen by Mark of course.
No. Mark’s wife.
Very thoughtful, and that Wrangler is a beaut … perfect for a summer drive around southern California for you and Not Elise.
But isn’t the ZJ still in transition between “cat habitat” and “working vehicle?” Or is there another ZJ we don’t know about?
Also, doesn’t the Mustang need a suspension?
That’s encouraging to see instead of them decaying from neglect.
5 bucks sweet nefratiti! You are living large. $3.39.9 can’t forget the .9 in flyover SE WI. $3.11.9 up Nort as they say. Enjoy the summer of fumes.
This is a very wise revelation on your part.