IIn another era, before Elon Musk bought Twitter, he changed its name to X to represent the place of his descent into barbarism. honed grokgenerator of far-right propaganda, supported Donald Trump and made something like a Nazi saluteI already knew he was wrong. It was 2019 and I was testing a Tesla; As I walked out of the station plaza, the PR guy cheerfully told me that the windshield was made of a material that would protect the driver from biohazards. I hit the brakes. “You What? What is a biohazard? Like, war? She misinterpreted me into thinking I was going to go find some toxic waste dump and see if it was working, and said, “I'm not sure she works at the printing press park.”
It was not my question: rather, what kind of world is this? Tesla preparing for? So unstable that the average (albeit wealthy) private citizen should prepare for a chemical weapons attack? What kind of consumption pattern was it that the rich used their wealth to prepare for the chaos that their resource grab would cause, while the less rich prepared a little less well? Was Musk trying to bring to market plans for the apocalypse that the elite had already begun to implement? Because if he was, then maybe he wasn't a very good guy. And it turned out to be correct.
Tesla market share in Europe fell sharply in the EU sold 2.1% to 1.4% of new vehicles in November, which will likely cause consumers to turn away from what Tesla represents, even those who agree with Musk. At an anti-Tesla protest on the side of a dual carriageway earlier this year, we heard signs of support from real Tesla drivers. Nobody buying one of these cars before 2024 would sign up to look like they're supporting an owner's agenda that's getting more and more extreme. Meanwhile, Chinese automaker BYD recorded the fastest sales growth in November, while state-backed SAIC, which owns MG, recorded sales growth of 26%. Hybrids accounted for almost half of all sales. People haven't fallen out of love with electric cars.
The arguments for and against electric vehicles and hybrids represent a clear distillation of the conversation we must continually have about all steps towards net zero. From a purist's point of view, electric cars are a red herring; we need to do away with individual vehicles entirely, change lifestyles and infrastructure, and adapt the city 15 minutes so we don't need cars – make the emotional leap to the car as a purely practical object that the whole street could share, rather than as something that conveys status or self-confidence and as such should be kept private. We won't get where we need to be if we remain so stupid. There is also an inevitable practical aspect: batteries need rare metalsThis means that producing electric vehicles creates even more emissions.
On the other hand, electric cars are clear proof that no one will commit to a fossil fuel lifestyle if something better comes along. And once something a little better comes along, it keeps getting better. No amount of corporate lobbying or teething problems will stop people from trading worse for better.
And electric cars are an incredible story of improvement. When I first reviewed Nissan Leafit had to be delivered on a flatbed truck because the range was so low that they couldn't believe it would have enough charge after traveling 50 miles. Now the most basic model will go almost 300 miles. The solid-state batteries will be tested next year, promising a range of 500 miles on a 10-minute charge. I have serious concerns about the technological utopianism associated with climate disruption: the tentative assertion that human ingenuity will solve everything is often just a way to block collective energy and activism. But advances in electric vehicles are so far ahead of expectations that it would be rude not to notice.
Ironically, by the yardstick that once appealed to gas geeks, manly driving – zero to 60 – is better suited to electric vehicles because they have fewer moving parts, less wasted energy and deliver instant peak torque. better infrastructure; public charging is becoming more common and private charging is becoming cheaper.
Perhaps if we could be subtle enough to recognize that we all need to change, but we can also have the victory when it's right there; that we all need to move beyond the market, but that market forces sometimes still work – this will have implications beyond just cars. But the most important takeaway: don't let Elon Musk to tarnish the electric car revolution and not allow him to turn it into something other than what it is. This is not a story of people being threatened by hiding behind their expensive reinforced windshields. Collective ingenuity has advanced what is realistic, and realists do the rest.
