Rabbi's Musings

More and more people are driving electric cars. I have had one for years. (True confession: when I bought it from my sister-in-law, I thought I was getting a hybrid Chevy Volt. But it is a Chevy Bolt, with no gas engine. In my defense, the V and the B sound similar on the phone.) The car is good for short hauls, but when I need to go more than fifty miles I take Melanie’s gas-powered car. Yes, I suffer from range anxiety. You’re driving your electric vehicle, and suddenly, you lose power! Here’s how one EV motorist described his experience: “I began to lose power in the car — the car was doing 45 mph and began to slow down gradually despite me pressing the acceleration pedal. The range shown on the battery was 10 miles. I was only 2.5 [miles away from a] supercharger at that time. I pulled over my car and stopped on the shoulder, afraid that if I kept going, the car might shut down in the middle of the road. At night on an un-lit road, this would not be good.”

“Range anxiety,” -- although it’s a term usually associated with EV owners -- is a fear most people have experienced. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly, we notice that the fuel gauge is on “E”! We fear the worst. Stuck on the side of the road with a car that has no fuel, the next town is 89 miles away, and that 18-wheeler we see blasting down the highway toward us is being driven by an axe murderer. We’re stuck in the middle of a Stephen King novel!

As more people drive electric cars, range anxiety should lessen as the infrastructure needed to support them grows. In the meantime, I will be careful. Not to mention avoiding all those who ride in “self-driving” cars. (My brother is very excited his Tesla is “self-driving.”) I have seen too many movies where things go wrong. Not that actual drivers are perfect. (It was the late Tommy Smothers who said he would like to die peacefully in his sleep, not like the terrified passengers in his car.)

The metaphor is not lost on me. Fearing the future is relieved by faith in God. I believe in a loving and caring God, and this faith comforts me. In the meantime, I will take every precaution not to endanger myself –- or my sense of self -– on the figurative lonely highway of life. And unlike my brother and his Tesla, I will not be going into self-driving mode. God is the only co-pilot who gets to ride with me!