Rumors in Israel happen faster than the Internet. I was at my kid’s play last night at school and after it we were talking about what’s the best car to crash in. Unlike in Mediterranean climates like Sicily where people drive small cars for the small narrow lanes in the villages, so many people, seems like half of the nation, are driving SUVs.
When you have kids you get to talk about what’s the best car to crash in. And should it be electric or gas? And if we are talking about crashing, heaven forbid, are electric vehicles more expensive to insure? ←- offers some good take homes. At least when it comes to Canada.
We have a large, not fuel efficient VW Touareg and we don’t live in Canada. It’s an old car, drives like a tank, drinks gas while parked and is the opposite of what you would expect from a treehugger like me. The truth is I do ride my bike most of the time between here and there throughout the day. But my kids go to a Waldorf Anthroposophic school in Tel Aviv and well there is no choice to drive sometimes when I need to meet them out of school hours (normally they take the bus).
So if you want to crash in the city, I tell my friend Shai, you should crash in an SUV in Tel Aviv because well everyone else has an SUV, like we do. But I think our car might be the best to withstand a crash. I am not the only crazy one to talk about stuff like this. Read around the net and a lot of people care about it. Because if everyone has an SUV and you are driving a 2 person electric car, you will care what happens to you.
But Shai enlightened me on a couple of issues. One is that that newer cars actually crash better than my 12 year old VW tank because they are made to fold up on impact, resulting in a write-off. Write-off yes, but lives saves too. While the old cars don’t fold up so your bodies rather than the car take the impact. Something to think about. (The Volvo XC60 is the best according to crash test results).
The other is that on the topic of fuel efficiency he mentioned that Tesla is going to start selling in Israel. The trucks, I ask. I hope not, he replies but we both got excited about it because unlike Better Place (read about its post mortem) with a really unsexy boxy car, Elon Musk from Tesla created a car that looks and feels like a million dollars, even when you are riding around on its vegan leather seats.
Cars in Israel for prospective buyers of the new Tesla, you should know, come with a hefty import tax of 100% so expect it to be much more than a pretty penny when you try to buy one. I don’t know about payment options and how that will work. Israeli law used to have a tax break for people who buy electric and hybrid cars. The cost of electricity is still double here than in places like Europe but less than gas. Let’s hope the government keeps the tax breaks on. And yup, an easy Google search show Shai was right. Tesla is recruiting.
