EVS AND THE YUGOS OF THE 21ST CENTURY: Being a car guy and having covered the auto industry for the bigger part of my journalism career (1985 to 2010), I remember all too well when Yugos were imported into the U.S. They rapidly became jokes and disappeared from these shores because they so poorly designed and built.

Today, Issues & Insights explains why EVs are present era’s Yugos:

“Fast forward to today, and a new class of cars has a similar problem. A minor accident can cause a total loss, even if the car’s been driven only a few miles. The only difference is that these cars aren’t cheap imports from some godforsaken socialist state. These are state-of-art electric vehicles that come with an average sticker price of $55,000.

“Why are insurance companies totaling low-mileage EVs that have been in a fender bender? For the same reason you could total a new Yugo when backing out of a parking spot. The cost of repair is exorbitant.

“As Reuters reported recently, ‘For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents,’ which means the only viable option is to replace the battery, which represents about half the cost of the car.”

More evidence for why, as I’ve said before, they will only be able to take my internal combustion-powered vehicle away from me when they pry my cold dead fingers off the steering wheel.