Woster: Electric vehicles might be the future, but they’re not worth fighting over

Sometimes I can hardly believe the things people can turn into a political litmus test.

Take electric cars, for example. Apparently, if you think electric cars are a good thing, you are a liberal, leftist communist sympathizer bent on the ruination of the United States of America. If you don’t like them, you are a troglodyte, a reactionary tool. I can see not agreeing on electric vehicles. But why the super-charged emotion?

Sure, we have always had arguments about cars. I wasn’t around yet, but I have read of how the early internal-combustion vehicles were criticized and demonized when they first began sharing city streets with horse-and-buggy outfits.

Even after motorized vehicles had won that cultural war, we had arguments about cars. Back on the farm, we had neighbors who swore by Buicks. Nothing else would do. Others would have rather walked than ridden in anything but a Ford. Some people even argued the relative merits of a Chevrolet product versus a General Motors vehicle.

I noticed early on that my young playmates usually advocated, often quite forcefully, for whatever make of vehicle their parents favored. I couldn’t do that very well. Dad had an eclectic spirit when it came to cars. I remember us owning a Nash sedan, a Pontiac station wagon, a Chevrolet Biscayne, an Oldsmobile 88, a ’57 Chevy six-cylinder. There were others. It isn’t easy to be passionate about a make of vehicle when the make changes every few years.

But those were good-natured arguments — mostly, anyway. I don’t think anyone went home from such a discussion and seethed about it for the next week. I doubt anyone considered their neighbor a communist or traitor to their class for owning a Plymouth.

I get a different sense in some of the disagreements about electric vehicles. Being for or against them (and who is for or against such an innocuous thing as a vehicle?) is a sign that you are for or against one political party or another. What’s up with that?

I saw an online image of a line of cars stuck on a highway in a blizzard. The caption said something like, “Imagine you are stuck here with an electric vehicle and your battery is running low.’’ My first thought was, “That would be bad. Imagine you are stuck there and your gas tank is heading toward empty.’’ I didn’t say that in a comment, because most of the comments suggested, sometimes plainly, that anyone with an electric vehicle was a moron, a subversive or worse.

How can you get that fired up over a car?

I don’t have an electric car, probably won’t at my age. I’d be surprised if I ever own any vehicles other than the ones we have.

My awareness is that electrics still cost a lot. Out in this country, they would offer challenges. I suspect, though, that in some form, they are the future.

Our younger son owned one, a Tesla. He drove it around the Denver area and into the mountains confidently. He had a charging station, knew where other stations existed in his area and had a connection with other electric vehicle owners for questions and answers.

The first time I drove the thing, I almost gave myself whiplash. Our son had warned me about the rate of acceleration, but I guess I had to feel it for myself. It put my college-days ‘62 Impala with the oversized V-8 to shame.

We were on an empty road, no danger of encountering another vehicle. The car handled well and rode noiselessly. I found much to like about it.

We have owned three hybrids. Fifteen years ago, we bought a Prius. The little thing dependably got 48 or 50 miles to the gallon. The next Prius got a less spectacular but still decent 42 to 44 mpg. Now we have a small SUV that has more room but clocks in at around 30 or 32 mpg — more than my pickup’s 18-20 mpg but a far cry from 50.

I wouldn’t like to be stranded on a snow-covered highway in a blizzard in the hybrid or the pickup. I shouldn’t get an argument there, should I?