"Old School" and our Electric (?) Future

The other day I had a pleasant chat with a client. As what’s inevitable among men, the talk was about cars. Lamenting the rising prices of brand new cars, he shared with me his ongoing love affair with an aging Lancer Evolution 3. The “itlog” model, he’d acquired it used and abused, but patience and several hundreds of thousands of pesos later the car had turned into a respectable “Sunday machine”, a turbocharged, all-wheel drive beast that made every liter of high-octane premium worth every centavo when the road opened up and work could be put aside for awhile.

Like many others of my generation, there’s this part-parsimonious, part-romantic appeal of going old school, or at least “semi” old school if one’s definition of it must be restricted to cars before, say, 1990. One client is particularly proud of his well-maintained Mercedes Benz “124”, and another is especially proud of the 1970-something Toyota Corolla he patiently restored over several months. I myself still have a soft spot in my heart for a 1978 Datsun 280ZX with which I spent a summer before college (I don’t care what anyone says about it’s being an overweight and underpowered “pimp-mobile” during its time. I had a connection with it, and that’s that.)

Cars today are becoming uncomfortably complex. A lot of it is still metal and plastic and rubber, but so is a computer, and cars today are becoming large computers with 4 wheels at the corners. Go through the average brochure and you’ll come across impressive acronyms like ABS, EBD, and EFI. Easy enough to decipher, but try this: CBC, AYD, DSC, and ASR, to name a few.

If your car is suffering from a few hiccups, an ordinary mechanic may not suffice. Now you need a qualified technician to plug his own computer into the car’s, and then maybe he can figure out what’s wrong with it. Or maybe not.

Now, I love cars, but I like to keep maintenance simple, painless, and angst-free. When a part begins to show signs of breaking down, I just bite the bullet and replace it right away; an expensive lesson learned from a past car when I let a failing radiator completely break down and then require an even more expensive engine overhaul. Shock absorbers, bushings, oil filters, brake pads... everything is so predictable, the replacement schedule nearly as reliable as a Swiss clock.

But today’s generation of automobiles may not be so simple. Just as we were exchanging war stories about our cars, another client shared his growing frustration with his father’s malfunctioning V6. Seems there’s a problem with the ignition timing, especially since its “variable displacement” feature makes it more complicated than most V6s. Or what about a friend’s automatic-equipped truck? The mechanics couldn’t figure it out, but the torque converter would (sometimes) just refuse to deliver power to the wheels above 60kph no matter how deeply you stepped on the accelerator.

Come now the “real” next generation of automobiles: alternative fuel. Who would have thought that what was the stuff of sci-fi movies two decades ago would come to fruition in our time? The Toyota Prius is an expensive rarity on our roads, but it is so popular in the US and Japan that it may have received the ultimate accolade: it’s even used as a taxi in Tokyo. Next year a “plug-in” version of the Prius will be available.

Also coming next year is the Nissan Leaf, a full Electric Vehicle with a range between charges of around 160 kilometers. Ideal for urban dwellers who rarely travel more than 60 kilometers per day, it’s around the same size as a Grand Livina.

Also from the Orient is the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, another electric commuter vehicle that you plug into a wall outlet just like you would a cellphone.

Seemingly back from the dead, General Motors is set to unveil the much-ballyhooed Chevrolet Volt before this year ends, a plug-in hybrid with an electric-only range of 64 kilometers and a further 480 kilometers on conventional gasoline.

Then there are the more ubiquitous hybrid versions of popular mainstream cars: the Honda Civic and the Ford Escape. BMW and Mercedes Benz have also introduced hybrid versions of their flagship sedans: the ActiveHybrid 7 and S400 Hybrid, respectively.

Should we junk our fossil fuel-powered cars just yet? Only if you’re rolling in cash. Hybrid/EV cars are still for the budgets of wealthy, environmentally conscious folks willing to pay the premium. The Chevy Volt has a projected price of US $41,000, the Nissan Leaf for around $32,000. The locally available Prius retails for a rather shocking P2.250M.

But that’s the thing with pioneering technology. Prices inevitably go down once a critical mass has been reached, making economies of scale possible. And who knows if our government will see the light and lay off the heavy tariffs on these cars? In ten or fifteen years, we may be car shopping for an EV as if it were as normal a purchase as getting an Innova.

But thinking about the maintenance issues may baffle us hardcore folks who occassionally like to fiddle with our cars and get creative with parts sourcing. If you’re loathe to bring your EV to the casa, and your neighborhood mechanic can’t figure out what’s bugging the drive-by-wire steering/throttle/brakes/holographic dashboard, perhaps you can bring it to Greenhills. Maybe a new backyard industry of automotive technicians will crop up like what’s happened for cellphones and laptops.

Just don’t think about the cost of recharging them. Between the perenially fluctuating price of fuel and the cruel kw/hour rates of electricity, it will be interesting to see how cost-effective a greener, high-tech future will be.

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