Sustainable Mobility
I’ve been noticing carmakers use terms like sustainable mobility, progressive, futuristic among others while unveiling their electric products.
I get the need for automakers to do that. They are trying to appeal to the good-natured person who would spend his or her hard-earned money on items that he or she believes would “save” the world.
Governments across the world are using the same terms too, to show that they care about mother nature. According to them, using electric vehicles will somehow “save the planet”.
To further sell the idea of sustainable mobility, and to make the citizenry consider purchasing electric vehicles, incentives are provided by several nations to EV buyers today.
Further, many nations have announced their plans to ban the sale of new petrol- and diesel-powered cars before 2040 citing the need to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050.
They are helped by the so called “climate scientists” who keep telling us that due to global warming all of Arctic ice will melt away and, as a result, people will die. Honestly, their predictions have been wrong time and again.
This has led to the point where many, including me, want scientists to behave like actual experts and not further a propaganda. People have the right to know the truth and the exact degree to which scientists overestimated global warming should be openly published for all to understand.
Let me be clear here. I do want to cut down on pollution and agree that India is among the worst polluters on Earth. But, there should be a concentrated effort to reduce pollution across all fronts without hurting the layman.
However, since EV technology has not yet advanced to meet the needs of all kinds of people, governments and auto companies and desperately tying to sell people the idea that if they buy an electric car or a bike, they are contributing to efforts that focus on “saving the planet”.
Interestingly, even with the cost of fuel rising so much in India, people are still sticking to petrol and diesel vehicles. The truth is that EVs have not advanced to the point where they would make the ICE vehicle obsolete.
The average consumer would have made the change to sustainable mobility already if that had happened, in a similar fashion to people shunning landlines in favour of mobile phones.
It is not the job of automotive firms to sell ideas. Their job is to sell automobiles that were created through solid ideas. If the sustainable mobility change does not happen on merit, it won’t stick.
But what is to be expected from a world that brings out and accepts emissions regulations so restrictive that it makes even the most modern internal combustion engine less fuel efficient, eh?
