Hypocrites in high places

It is saddening to see a discussion that should be based on logic and intelligence is driven by ideology and vested interests. The case in point is America’s fledgling electric-vehicle (EV) industry and those that are fighting to kill it before it even gets started. That this self-destructive internal argument is taking place at a time when the rest of the world is involved in active EV development is even more baffling.

Technology should have no political party, and engineering should have no ideology. We are supposed to deal with the realm of facts, of what can be done, and what we want to achieve. In an ideal situation we would evaluate the available solutions and choose the best of them to serve our societal needs. Sadly we are so far from that our existing politically-driven dialog doesn’t even resemble an intelligent conversation. The sick sad part is these disingenuous pandering politicians and business leaders scream about how they care about US tech while they strangle EV development in the cradle.

Case in point is one of America’s native EV developers, Tesla. One would expect that given the state and pace of EV development overseas that encouraging (if not directly investing) the commercialization and deployment of Tesla's (and other EV maker’s) next-generation vehicles. However, there are too many blinded by money and special interests to give Tesla a proper chance in the marketplace. They need the American EV market to flounder to further their selfish and self-destructive reactionary ideology. These hypocrites in high places claim to care about the country but do nothing but take actions that will line their pockets, regardless of the impact on society.

Tesla’s business model of selling its cars directly has given these pseudo-Luddites a weapon to use against them, and the company has been under attack in many US states, including Texas, Arizona, and New Jersey, where anti-development forces take advantage of last-generation laws that require automakers to sell through independent dealerships. Using that cudgel, antiquated business hopes to stave off the next generation of vehicle development.

This philosophy is actually very bad for the USA for many, many reasons. The biggest historical fact is that solid-state technologies have always pushed legacy tech out of every market a solid-state solution has been created for has obviously been lost on these hypocrites, as they shovel sand against the tide trying to hold back development of a tech whose time has already come. Other nations haven’t lost sight of that, which is why we stand a vary good chance of buying all of our EVs in the future from overseas while those same hypocritical politicians point fingers at each other over who “lost” the American EV manufacturing base.

So America sits on the crossroads of next-generation vehicle development, and where we go, forwards or backwards, is solely up to us. If we allow legacy vested interests and last-generation business and political ideology drive our technological development we have already lost the race, and should be embarrassed of ourselves.

PSD