As automakers roll out a greater variety of electric models and governments increase support to encourage drivers to make the shift to battery power, the days of the internal-combustion vehicle appear to be numbered. Presumably, most people would see that shift as a positive development to address climate change, as long as electric vehicles come down in price. But not so for Bryan Appleyard.
In his book The Car: The Rise and Fall of the Machine That Made the Modern World, Appleyard takes readers through the history of the automobile from the perspective of a car enthusiast. According to him, we may be just a few years away from a situation in which owning a car could be as “eccentric as owning a train or a bus. Or perhaps it will simply be illegal.” His definition of the car is a narrow one: a human-driven vehicle with an internal-combustion engine, uniquely imbued by human innovation with the power to grant “generalised political and social freedom” to the public, to the degree that its drawbacks may not be enough to merit getting rid of it.
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