I’m a tech optimist. I see tech making life better for people around me. In the last century and a half, electricity came on the scene. From it, a myriad of other things, including lights and electronics. Cars came on the scene. We’re not stuck to the speed of a horse to travel. In the twenty first century those two things have combined well and we have electric cars.
I love mine. I originally wanted one because I figured, in the long run, our electrical generation will become more and more renewable. Electric cars will become more and more environmentally friendly. Having had one, I’m not sure I could return if someone convinced me gas powered car were environmentally friendly.
- It’s way more fun to drive.
- The acceleration is smoother.
- The car accelerates like no car I had driven before.
- The car is quieter. I can have a normal conversation in the front seat not of having to talk over the engine.
- I never have to make a trip to a gas station to fuel. I plug in the car in at home.
- It has few moving parts. I haven’t needed a mechanic for an oil change, or anything else.
- I don’t have to smell gasoline. A few months after we made the final switch, I was in someone’s car and they stopped at a gas station. Whew, I said, there’s a smell I didn’t miss.
A few electric cars improvements I see as time goes on.
- I mentioned above, the electric grid is becoming more environmentally friendly.
- Mining and material processing will become more electric based, and done in a more environmentally (and ethically) sound way.
- Charge times on road trips will get shorter as new stations get faster
- Wait times at charge stations will get smaller as more stations are built. On our first road trip we arrived at a station with 8 chargers and 7 or 8 people were waiting ahead of us. Thankfully we haven’t had to wait long since, and they’ve built more chargers in the area. It’s unlikely to happen again.
- Range anxiety will disappear as charge stations are built in areas currently underserved. I have a story for another time.
Tech has gotten better in the last 150 years, but loneliness has increased, even as the population has ballooned. We humans are 6 times as many as 150 years ago. And we’re more lonely, despite 6 times as many people to meet.
Consider the idea of meeting a new person every second for a year. More people would have been born during the year than you had met. You would have more people left to meet than you had at the start of the year.
Get outside and meet people. Get busy living, so you’re not dying of loneliness and depression. You’ll never run out of people to meet.
Thanks for your insights!