It is probably not a big secret when I say: I am a fan, a friend, someone who is convinced that we need electric cars.
However, electric cars still raise many questions.
The biggest question is: How do you get people out of their old routine and do traditionalists overcome their fear of change?
The problems that one likes to see with electric cars today are not the purchase price and the range. It is much simpler: it is the fear of having to change the familiar. And so discussions about electromobility often turn into pure discussions about emotions. About the fear of the unknown. Having to break habits from the stress. People usually react to changes with rejection. As long as a situation is “bearable”, the majority does not want any change. There is such a thing as a collective fear of change.
In the largest Automobile blog, which is probably not by chance in the country of the “right to individual traffic” (USA), only now did an announcement appear again, which is filled with false claims, distorted facts and literally smells of fear of change.
Under the title “America doesn't want Electric”, the author explains in a non-factual form (like me) about the electric vehicles, which in his opinion are so caustic. What is particularly stupid about his rant against electromobility is the sentence: "They're a solution for a problem we don't have."
Wow. It is the United States with the greatest problems facing the upcoming changes. Although motorists in the USA in particular are still being driven at comparable low fuel prices for further dependence on fossil fuel, it is precisely in the country of long distances - an incredible change that has to be mastered.
In the United States, it is almost impossible to do without private transport outside of the big cities. The urban structure is too much adapted to the networking of work and life with the help of your own automobile. In this situation in particular, it seems to be pure fear of change that drives people like Jalopnik author Joel Johnson to such polemical calls to avoid development together.
I have no problem with gasoline cars. On the contrary. I love the gurgling sound of a large displacement V8. I am in love with the screeching of a high speed V10. The sawing sound of a 6 cylinder boxer gives me long-lasting goose bumps.
But I only see an alternative to share these emotional moments with my children. And that is the switch to electric mobility from renewable energies. Because only if the daily grind is mastered by e-mobility and green energy will we be able to enjoy combustion engines for many years to come.
It is a question of environmental protection, CO² savings and finite oil reserves. Even if I am not inclined to join in the canon of the “petroleum will soon be empty” panic prayer, I see that it makes much more sense to use energy that can be quickly renewed. And often just falls from the sky for free.
Even dreamy idealists like me realize that this development will not be implemented in everyday life from one day to the next. That it takes a while for new techniques to become affordable for the general public, is clear. However, if one stands up and, based on the status quo of the past, wants to slay any change with the club of polemics in the discussion, then this is neither intelligent - nor fair for the following generations.