What are you thinking, Toyota? $50K for your new RAV4 EV? This sounds like the last time California forced you into making electric vehicles. Forbes is right, you don’t care. (I imagine your partnership with Tesla has something to do with the price point.) It’s been ten years since the first-generation RAV4 EV. It sounds like once you discontinued that model, you sat around and didn’t actually develop the technology. 100-mile range? Again? And tell me again, please, what’s up with the price tag?

Nissan has you beat and they’re way ahead of you in the game. I admire them for taking a big risk on electric cars. Heck, even Mitsubishi looks better; even if their car is a bit funnier-looking, it still doesn’t cost 50,000 smackeroos*. The i also happens to be the most affordable new EV so far. Hats off to them. (Personally I’m looking forward to seeing the Golf EV in action in a couple years.)

To be honest, I would probably not buy a brand new EV. It would take even better government incentives for that to happen – or closer to price parity with the dino-stinkers. In a few years, used and off-lease EVs will be available at a much better value. (Besides, I’m neurotic enough: no need to obsess over getting a little scratch or ding on a shiny new car.) And as for petrol-powered vehicles? I’m done with them. They interest me no longer. I vow here and now that unless some unforeseen circumstance forces me into acquiring another one, I shall never again purchase a petroleum-powered vehicle for my own personal everyday use. They’re old tech, dirty, noisy, expensive to maintain, and they’re hurting the nation we live in and the planet we live on. Presently I can think of no better single way of sticking it to the powers that be than to purchase an electric vehicle to replace 99% of my daily driving needs. True, Nissan and Mitubishi and all those big car companies that are producing EVs are also “powers that be,” but at least they align – on some level – with my values.

Bring on the electric revolution!

* smackeroo (SMACK-uh-roo) n. The sound your money makes when an expensive purchase is also a foolish purchase.