“If you don’t make combustion engines, someone else will.” A rare moment of sanity in the form of a statement (from a while ago) from BMW boss Oliver Zipse. Most people in his position feel obliged to talk only about an all-electric future, and they fear the consequences of even suggesting anything other than that.
Because politicians and young people living in big cities have decided that being able to cover distances using a motorbike is the worst thing a person can do. While they slurp their freshly flown coffee from Ethiopia.
It’s that certainty of the electro-zealots that I find so distasteful, and the fact that they think they are so morally superior. What also doesn’t help for them is the fact that public opinion about the future of mobility is shaped by politicians, Twitter brawlers and, to a degree that I find genuinely creepy, the education system.
The cancel culture also affects the combustion engine
This is 50 years of scenario planning by Wikipedia. The first two are easy to understand and very visible. Today’s cancel culture means there are two things you absolutely can’t do on social media: defend the internal combustion engine and assume that only one cyclist in the history of cycling has done anything wrong.
For those of us who don’t necessarily agree with those views and think that you can expect an adult human to see the gray between the black and white every now and then, of course there is always the option but just not active to be on those platforms.
No more Twitter
I haven’t been on Twitter for several months – as you could have predicted, it makes me a happier person. But if you have kids and obey the law by sending them to school, you can’t get around the education system.
My children have learned a lot from their often inspiring teachers. Most of them spread the message of tolerance, of never coming to absolute conclusions on all kinds of subjects, from the British… Empiresense to gender, and that it might be better if people in the UK didn’t eat avocados in November. But there’s one constant message that my kids also get (and absolutely unequivocally): cars are bad.
For a driving parent, it’s a bit frustrating, hammering this in with nonsense. For a character who hosts a TV show that takes a not-so-serious approach to firing up fossil fuels, it’s a bit of a disaster.
Fast cars get dirty looks
Twenty years ago, someone in my position would have been asked one after another to take a Lambo to the schoolyard so that 6th graders could give the rev counter a swish and giggle. In 2022 I almost have to disguise myself so as not to get dirty looks all the time.
Even if I drive up in an EV, I feel like an armed robber fresh out of prison should count on less conviction. It’s very weird. Especially since most kids nod dutifully when the master tells them they should live in a cave and renounce everything their native country has done for the past 5,000 years, then run outside and snuggle in the backseat of mom’s Range Rover. .
We also have to teach the teachers something
Anyway, I think we, the automotive community, need to get to grips with the education system. Do a little PR. They state that it is very well possible that electricity will determine a large part of the mobility future, but that other solutions will also remain necessary. That driving is not necessarily Evil itself, and that you may even enjoy it. And that okra in the UK, in January, isn’t really a seasonal vegetable either.
#Chris #Harris #cancel #culture #affects #cars #good