Majority of voters favor gasoline-car phaseout. But all-electric goal faces tough opposition.
This is how to build the future of transportation in the U.S.: Start with all-electric vehicles and then phase out gas-powered cars as a country goes.
This is how to build a more just society: Build a society of personal ownership and use, not just ownership and use.
That “p” of personal ownership is the operative key.
There is no future for public roads unless we can convince enough Americans that cars are too large and impersonal to drive.
The current gas-powered car culture is the biggest impediment to the transition to personal ownership. It’s a culture in which the car is everything, the only “essential” of your life.
But the solution to personal ownership may be the biggest obstacle to making such an all-electric future — to make the transition to a society of personal ownership — for the public good.
The road to personal ownership is paved with the past.
Today, we have a car culture in which we all have to take the car if we want it, and the car culture is dominated by an industry that is fighting to keep the size and the price of the car as big as possible.
It’s a culture in which the car is our friend, the only friend we count on, the only friend who will wait for us when we get there.
It’s the car we feel safe with.
But, as the history of the car shows, the road to personal ownership is paved with the past. That’s what John Muir said 100 years ago, and 100 years later, every major car company that exists today is pushing us into cars that we hate and despise. They want us — all of us — to buy the car that we will never ever, ever own.
But you don’t have to buy the car you will never own.
You don’t have to spend another penny on gas in your car.
The car you will never own
