How We Escaped the Musk-Rat Shamble

​Both our fathers, my wife’s and mine, were early adopters. Cedar’s dad, the Connecticut Education Association’s lobbyist at the state capital, discussed with his family decades ago whether or not he should hire the first African-American secretary in the Association’s history. (He did.) My dad, a grain merchant, was among the first in his peer group to buy a teletype and, then, a computer. With wonder in his voice he would tell our family at dinner about the wonders of these new then-state-of-the-art machines.

So not surprisingly, my wife and I were early purchasers of an electric vehicle. Ten years ago, in 2015, we got our first: a 2013 Nissan Leaf. It was a lovely little car. After 40 months, however, we felt its range, 110 miles on a good day, was too limiting. So we turned the car back in to Nissan—we had leased it—and got one of the first Tesla Model 3s in Boulder. We had paid for extra range and now had 335 miles on a full charge. We could make road trips, and did, to New England, the San Francisco Bay area, and places in New Mexico. Tesla had already set up charging stations about 100 miles apart on all the U.S. Interstate Highways, so, with a little foresight and planning, one could easily go on serious road trips. We were proud of our powerful fire-engine-red Model 3, which could leave behind old-fashioned muscle vehicles at stop signs or traffic lights, whose angry drivers would then drive 50 in a 30-MPH zone to pass us with a scowl or worse. Meanwhile, Elon Musk seemed a forward-thinking visionary and hero of our time, what with Tesla, Space X, and Solar City, not to mention his plans to colonize Mars.
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That was then. In the meantime, having become the richest person in the world, he went over to the Darkside of the Force. Having funded Donald Trump’s 2024 Presidential campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars, with more millions going to assist Republicans in must-win swing states, the boy genius from South Africa became now-President Trump’s special assistant for downsizing government by some two trillion dollars. This he immediately started doing not with a scalpel but a wrecking ball. His approach reminded me of the opening scene in the film Atlantic City, which shows the wrecking-ball destruction of the iconic Traymore Hotel in that New Jersey beach resort (see the photo overleaf.)

I should mention that for six years our Tesla named Tessa cost us zero in repairs and maintenance. Electric vehicles have one-tenth of the moving parts that internal-combustion cars have, hence they break down much less frequently. Then, early in year 7 things starting going south. And since Tesla parts are mainly proprietary, you have to go to their dealerships for repairs, which turn out to be super-expensive. A small running light, for example, costs over $550 to replace. Anyway, we were facing costly repairs to our climate system and two lights totaling some $2,200. So we decided to sell. We found a place in nearby Broomfield, Colorado that would give us a price at the high end of the car’s Blue Book value and that without our having any of the repairs done. We were overjoyed. And now we are happily driving a brand-new, affordable pearl-blue 2025 Nissan Leaf, with a decent range in the mid-200s, around 244. All’s well that ends well. No longer are we a moving ad for Mr. Wrecking Ball. Yay!

. . . Where my family and I spent idyllic vacation days in my youth.