Motor Mania

There are many emotions around electric vehicles (EVs), historically started and mostly fueled by Tesla in North America and now also in Europe the EU Commission's ban of new registrations of internal combustion engine (ICE) - based cars since 2035. What is troubling though is the fully "linear" projection of the legacy car ownership model.

I strongly believe most people will not own personal cars in 2035 anymore. Especially people living in modern cities. Public transport, micro mobility (electric scooters) and app-based car sharing should take care of this. If it does not, it means we have failed as societies.

Cars are generally very heavy for personal budgets, for the environment and for the quality of life in general. In cities they occupy vast amount of public spaces. Mostly sitting on streets or in parking lots. Personal cars do nothing for most of their lifetime. Yet they are a huge ballast for owners. You need to insure them, service, have a place to park, only to use them perhaps 5% of the time. Economically this does not make sense. But of course the automotive market is a huge market and the whole supply chain will not give up their profits without a fight.

There is also the cultural / lifestyle component, pointed so accurately by Enrique Peñalosa (Bogotá’s former mayor): “An advanced city is not one where the poor can get around by car, but one where even the rich use public transportation.” (his TED talk here). This in a nutshell is the problem in America - busses are considered for the poor. The rich ride Uber or their own Tesla to protect the environment.

On top of the ownership issue there is the behavioral issue - the metamorphosis from the "walker" into the "wheeler", as illustrated by Walt Disney in "Motor Mania". Sadly, we are still acting like the 75 year old cartoon characters.