Close observation of recent developments in the automotive sector leads to a certain conclusion; financial collapse is necessary to bring about needed change.
We are bearing witness to a catastrophic rupture of the car industry as we know it. Not only in terms of the economic machinery upon which it is run, but more so upon the fuel its creations will use. The near death of the auto industry is bringing with it the slow death of the combustion engine.
When GM first introduced the Chevrolet Volt electric car concept, car sales were brisk, oil prices reasonable and the economy appeared healthy. Now that the car is nearing mass production and that most other automakers have subsequently unveiled electric car programs of their own, the economy, the industry, and the company is steeped in disaster.
I do not propose it is the case that the birth of the electric car caused this chaos, but rather it is this chaos that will allow the electric car industry to rise.
Whenever in the history of humankind and industrial progress a new transformational technology has arisen, its ascent has brought with it the demise of that which was before it.
Simple examples are how the typewriter was eradicated by the PC, the Polaroid by the digital camera, or how the horse and cart were replaced by the car. These destructive transformational events take place on many levels, such as the collapse of societies or ecosystems, the extinction of dinosaurs, or even as the big bang gave rise to the universe.
Fundamental market forces of their own right would not have led to a rapid production and adoption of electric cars. Rather, the status quo would have persisted, car companies would have continued to make profitable gas guzzling trucks and people would have kept buy them on credit. Indeed when GM introduced the Volt is was more public relations than an engineering. They didn’t decide to bring it to production until they saw the intense public response. Now it is their last hope.
The collapse of the economy combined with the current administration’s interest in energy independence, alternative energy and electric vehicles will make the rapid rise of the electric car possible.
People have not been buying new cars out of fear of their future economic status, lack of available credit, and a general dearth of financial confidence. They are driving their old cars and are doing so for as long as they can.
The government has chosen to support and recreate the auto industry as one that will grow the already inadvertently kindled electric car enterprise.
And then when the bottom has finally come and gone, and the lean restructured auto companies are mass producing electric cars including the Chevy Volt, the tide will change.
Confidence having begun to rise, and old cars having begun to fail, the people will come. And then our dream will arrive. A country and a world less dependent on oil. The rise of the electric car.
