Power to the People

By JAX

With the release of Tesla’s Model 3 prototype, the prospect of an affordable electric car with a useful range, backed by a nationwide network of complementary supercharging stations, has become an inevitable reality. Despite this substantial accomplishment, the aversion to Musk’s dream machine(s) seems as strong as ever from some segments of the population, namely those who think the gravelly roar of a tuned LS engine swilling high-octane fuel is better than a basketful of puppies baking chocolate chip cookies in the shapes of naked women.

But why?

It's no secret that the internal combustion engine’s days are numbered, no matter how hard we rage against the dying of the light, but this distaste for Musk and his company seems nonsensical. The typical complaints abound: Musk wouldn't be solvent without taxpayer dollars, Tesla can't turn a profit even with taxpayer dollars, their R&D is too high, their dealers — er, I mean stores — are not equipped to service the volumes Musk is promising, and (my personal favorite) something along the lines of “electric cars are for tree-hugging hippies who care more about baby seals than they do people and who probably eat granola they made themselves fertilized by their own private compost pile.”

Or something.

Confession time: it wasn't that long ago that I was one of those very people, insisting that electric cars were a silly endeavor in a world full of cheap gas, terrible batteries, and LS engines. Why in the name of all that was holy and decent would you want to drive a slow, ugly, and slow electric car that was slow and could back out of the driveway, maybe, before needing to be recharged for a millennium or four? At the time, the answer was easy: you wouldn't, unless you were Leo DiCaprio or anyone dumb enough to buy the Fisker Karma, which is also the same thing. But in the same way we all scoffed at Steve Jobs’ vision of a tablet computer, technology marched on independent of our personal prejudices. All it took was someone like Musk to recognize that the moment was right, the potential was there, and that, like Jobs, he would have to tell us how much we actually wanted the thing we were too busy saying we didn't want to realize that we wanted it.

Musk was right.

Ignore all the economic woes and fatalistic prognosticators. (Apple was near bankruptcy when they brought Jobs back, and now they’re the richest company in the world.) Focus instead on the products Musk has created: a touch screen that actually works, an autopilot system that actually works, a supercharger network that actually works, and perhaps best of all, previously unimaginable acceleration that is unlike any vehicle in the history of the automobile. But it doesn't stop there. Lithium ion batteries are far less damaging to the environment and far more efficient than their predecessors. Tesla’s supercharger network is free to Tesla owners, and Tesla’s research and development in the field of solar power should soon provide a renewable power source to help bring its supercharger network off the traditional grid. And it certainly doesn't hurt that Tesla’s entire range of vehicles is attractive, loaded with tech, and just plain cool.  Cool sells in case you haven’t noticed.
I could go on, but I'll leave you with this thought: electric cars are a blast to drive. For the past two years I've been leasing a Nissan Leaf, mostly out of curiosity but also to save gas money on my traffic-packed commute. I've been impressed with the adorkable Nissan’s ability to squirt in and out of gaps in traffic with the lightest of toe taps, cruise silently down the road allowing me blast my music and rock out to the max (I need tinted windows, though…), and hold my entire family and a lot of our junk in a car the same size as my first-gen Mazda 3 — which I adored but was short on space. Now combine all of those positives with sleek styling, almost triple the range of my Leaf, and Ludicrous Speed.
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What was it we were all complaining about again?