The Future of Driving

            A global revolution is commencing.  For years, huge corporations have released vast fleets of pollution producing machines that, as a side effect, also carried people around.  I’m talking, of course, about gasoline powered cars and the companies that sell them.

            Cars are one of the leading causes of global warming.  Until recently, almost every car in commercial, consumer use has been gasoline powered.  Both the companies that build these cars and the companies that provide fuel for them have grown rich and powerful.  But now a new company seems to be poised to grow rich and powerful off products with a single, key difference.

            The idea of an electric car has been around just as long as the idea of a gas powered car.  Gas engines, however, proved to be cheaper, more powerful, and more efficient than their electric counterparts – at least when they were first invented in the 19^th century.  Since then things have changed a little.

            Tesla Motors, in 2008, sold their first model: the Tesla Roadster.  It was the first fully-electric vehicle in the United States.  Since then, Tesla has come out with the Model S, the Model X, and, recently, the Model 3.  Tesla’s stated goal has been and is to provide affordable electric cars to the average consumer, and the Model 3 comes closer than ever to accomplishing this.  With a price tag of 35,000 dollars (before government incentives), the Model 3 is the cheapest electric car yet.  Since the beginning of order placement, Tesla has been swamped with orders, so many that they will not be able to fill all of them until 2019.

Is this the beginning of the end for conventional car companies?  It’s possible.  It may not happen for quite a while, but the world is making a choice.  That choice can be most aptly summarized by, strangely enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger:

“There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.

I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.

I'm guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice - who would ever want to breathe those fumes?

This is the choice the world is making right now.”

The world hopefully is making this choice - I for one think it is the correct one.  How long it will be until the change is completed is another matter entirely - we must hope it isn't too late.   Or, you know, do something to ensure it isn’t too late.