Back in 2009 when I was shopping for a cheap used sports car, one of the models I looked into was the Mazda RX-8, my interest mostly derived from the "cool" factor which its spiritual predecessor, the RX-7, had in the mid-90s.

But I quickly backed off of that notion: you see, the RX-8-- like its model forebears-- was powered by a rotary engine. And these motors could not be safely restarted until fully cooled down-- so forget taking the car grocery shopping. Or using the car at all, in practical terms. These rotary engines also burned oil by design-- which means the owner needed to remember to routinely refill them with oil, no small thing in the average person's busy life.

Even by 2009, there were very few RX-8s of the early model years left: the finicky motors meant that, again in practical terms, they were shot by 75,000 miles, totaling out the whole car. Since then, I haven't seen a single Mazda RX-8 in probably six years. There was and is no such thing as a "ten year old RX-8": the whole fleet has essentially been junked by now, the last production model year having been 2012.

So, I bought one of the RX-8's myriad competitors in the form of a Nissan 350z for $15k, instead. Eleven years later-- so, an eighteen year-old car in total-- and it's still going just as strong as the day it rolled off the assembly line. Good choice then! Especially versus the RX-8, which I would have long-since replaced, maybe even with a 350z ironically: two cars-- cars are expensive!-- required over the given timeframe, versus just one.

See those Teslas and other electric cars driving past you while out on a walk? Not a single one of those you see on the road is still going to be on the road ten years from now: their owners will all have been forced to buy yet another car since the $10k battery packs will have all gone bad by then, totaling out the vehicles-- just like the RX-8 rotary engines.

In other words, in this "all electric" future you keep hearing about, every car is going to be a Mazda RX-8. This is a real problem for the average American, who can't afford an electric car in the first place on their median $36k annual wages-- much less a new one every decade! That's why the average age of a car on the road today is twelve years. Remember: that means half of those cars are even older.

Unless I get bored with it, in ten years I'll probably still be driving my by-then 28 year-old 350z-- and it will have out-survived not just the entire fleet of produced Mazda RX-8s, but generations of electric cars to boot! I'll have spent $15k on car purchases over 21 years, versus the Tesla snobs and "New World Order" Ford customers who will have spend at least $80k over that same time period. That $65k difference buys me a lot of gasoline!

Electric cars are like this: "Hey Sniper, I invented a new toaster, want to see it? It costs twice as much, can only toast one slice of bread at a time, and you can only use it once a day. Pretty sweet, huh?" The only reason you'd exchange your superior conventional toaster for the new one-- to make all of those trade-offs-- would be if you thought it was somehow going to "save the planet". Which, unfortunately, seems to be what a lot of people have been brainwashed into thinking.