This is part of a series of articles on Electrifying Transportation.
The “tyranny of oil” may get a new foothold in our nation’s foreign policy, if Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson is confirmed as Secretary of State. But it’s losing its grip on our transportation systems, as more electric vehicles hit the mass market. And we’re not just talking golf carts anymore; King County Metro has announced plans to purchase over 100 battery-powered electric buses by 2020, making it the largest electric bus fleet in the country.
Electric vehicles are just better... Cleaner, quicker, simpler, easier to maintain, and best of all, oil-free. European countries are already moving to ban petroleum-fueled transportation altogether. Already, the lifetime cost of driving an electric vehicle is lower than its dinosaur-fueled counterpart. As prices continue to fall and batteries improve, it won’t be long before strapping ourselves to a 2-ton exploding power plant to get our decreasingly skinny butts from point A to point B—and fueling the trip with oil that simultaneously destroys the climate and democracy—is going to seem as lame as, y’know, it is.
Twenty state Attorneys General and the Securities and Exchange Commission are currently investigating Exxon-Mobil for defrauding consumers and investors by knowingly deceiving us about the lethal dangers of their product. Asked whether the investigations might undermine investor confidence, Rex Tillerson said “People are always going to need what we sell.”
The day we stop believing that is the day we start winning our best and only viable future, free of fossil fuels. The route to that future will be served by electric buses. Climb aboard.
