Concepts of "barbecue uncle" to depreciate electric cars are as retrograde as the prejudiced jokes of the past (which still persist)
I’m 56 years old. I belong to a generation that, in adolescence, made jocular jokes about ethnicities, creeds and sexual preferences. I’m glad that time has passed. You can continue to insist, however, with this disgusting habit, like the “barbecue uncle”. It is the “clueless”, who disrespectfully criticizes options that are not theirs.
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Or you can get real. We are in the year of grace of two thousand and twenty-six and some ignorances are today much more repelled than applauded. Respect is good. And the world demands it. Whether you like it or not. Sculpting electric cars is on the same level of ignorance that was seen in my adolescence.
(I chose a very controversial topic even in order to apologize to the reader for the absence of this column in recent weeks. The excess of tasks and the lack of good topics led me to skip a few weeks. I apologize. Let’s talk about something that recovers this hole. Let’s create controversy… lol)
The inspiration came yesterday, when I took an app car, leaving Ipiranga and returning to my home, in Vila Mascote, both neighborhoods in the south of São Paulo. An 11 km race. I had left my sedan, which has a 2.0 turbo engine of 184 hp, a spectacular gearbox – the best component of the car – of 8 gears and rear-wheel drive, in a workshop specialized in the brand for the 60,000 km service. I’ll leave a good handful of reais in this workshop, also because the rear pads have gone from this to the better and maybe (maybe…) they scratched the discs.
It is an OPTION. I have this car because I like it. I’ve been, like you, passionate about automobiles since I was a child. I have told countless stories that portray this passion, to the point of having managed to merge it with my only professional talent (writing).
The choice of my car rationally involves the thought that I will have reasonable expenses with preventive maintenance and, in the event of a breakdown, desperate expenses. I know that. And I chose it. The truth, however, is that I am able to afford this risk, understanding that the driving pleasure that this car provides me is absolutely incomparable in the price range it is positioned. Emphasize the underlined sentence well. It will give you all the understanding of the purpose of this column.
Fernando’s salary
I don’t want to sound arrogant here, far from it. I just want to make an analogy with the driver of the app that took me back home. Fernando owns a BYD Dolphin Mini. For these reasons, he was unemployed and without a kid in his pocket. All that remained was to rent a car and sign up for Uber. He worked for a few months, learned the tricks and concluded that he needed to get away from the rental and buy his own car.
After talking a lot with other drivers on the app, getting information from press reports and being mocked by family members for being interested in the “battery-powered car”, he made the purchase. Remember that Fernando had nothing in his pocket, right? He had to buy his car with no down payment, in 60 months. The installment of the financing and the monthly installment of the insurance amount to almost R$ 4.5 thousand/month.
Without an academic background in mathematics, but very intelligent, he remembered that the fuel consumed by the Fiat Mobi he rented before this purchase represented a monthly expense of R$ 2.5 thousand. “I start the month already owing R$ 7 thousand”. An aside, between us: do you know how much an app driver makes? If it runs around 12 hours a day, it will make R$ 300 or 350/day, already discounting Uber’s share. Just for him.
“I work 26 days a month. If I set the goal of R$ 350 in my pocket at the end of the day, I will earn R$ 9.1 thousand per month. Well, if I start the month already owing R$ 7 thousand, there will be nothing left…”
This Brazilian, who belongs to a very disadvantaged social class, is surviving thanks solely to his BYD. With the Dolphin Mini, which has so far driven 36 thousand km in just over 7 months, Fernando now has an income of about R$ 4.6 thousand per month, already debiting the expenses with the car. The cost of fuel is zero – he wakes up at 4 a.m. and goes hunting for fast chargers in São Paulo that don’t charge fares. Oh, and the expense of car maintenance… it is also zero.
And this is where I return to the theme of this column: when faced with a story like this, how do you have the courage to criticize electric cars?
It’s the manager’s fault…
I work professionally as a press officer for two brands: Porsche and GAC. I don’t think even the most clueless “barbecue uncle” on the planet would have the audacity to crack with Macan, Taycan, etc. No one would be so stupid, right? But GAC, due to its Chinese origin, receives this kind of affection.
Because I had a curious experience here at home. As soon as I signed the contract, I started to take the brand’s cars to get to know them. As my job would be to promote GAC’s news and products to the specialized car press, nothing more obvious than initially testing them myself.
I came home one day with the Aion V. Unlike other Chinese brands that extrapolate in the technical sheet numbers, the GAC is more measured: only 204 hp. Only 24,5 kgfm of torque. Contains irony, okay? My wife’s SUV has 166 hp and 20,5 kgfm, just for the record. We drove the whole weekend with the car. And she drove half the time. The Aion V has an Inmetro range of 389 km, which, in practice, means about 500 km in urban sections.
This car costs R$ 220 thousand, that is, it is in the same range as Jeep Compass, Toyota Corolla Cross, VW Taos, etc. Guys, it’s not because I work with the brand: none of these competitors have more space, equipment and refinement than the Aion V. Very charming design, front seats with massage, almost 15-inch multimedia, very complete ADAS package, Thermovault in the center console (refrigerator/oven ranging from -15ºC to 50ºC), absolute silence when driving. You can’t compare. The Aion V is superior in everything. And I’ll tell you that Priscilla just hasn’t hugged this car (yet) because the building where I live doesn’t have an electric car charger.
“Ah, Edu, but the Aion V doesn’t have the same driving dynamics as a VW Taos”. Maybe. But remember the example of Fernando, from Uber? Here it also fits: the car is not for me. It’s for Priscilla. It does not have, like 70% or 80% of car buyers in Brazil, any ambition to seek sports handling ! And you, like me, who belong to the minority of car lovers, do not have the right to scrutinize electric cars if other buyers have different needs and ambitions!!
And I won’t even go into the merit of the fact that electric cars don’t provide pleasure when driving. The technical riding you get to undertake when using the regenerative brake is sensational. No “patriotism”: I think it’s really fun!
In short, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it for yourself. How could I not buy it for myself – mine is there in the Ipiranga workshop, remember? But refusing the obviousness that the electric car is, indeed, a genius alternative for thousands of people who need to work on their daily work behind the wheel, through savings in the cost per km driven, or even who only privilege comfort, design, premium finish and refinement in a car, borders on stupidity. Like jokes from the 80s.
Swallow that. And stop being the “barbecue uncle”.
