conscripted into the effort of getting folks comfortable with stepping into a windowless moving room on their own and trusting it to deposit them safely at the 50th floorsubsidies and bans on gasolinefueled cars have a crucial role to play especially in the absence of transparent emissions pricing but a true transportation transition means persuading the likes of you and me to literally buy into itrather than the productivity gains we focus on in hindsight prewar tractor manufacturers exercised their inner don drapers and dangled what every farmer really wanted a rest from the gray drab existence of mule farming you can emerge into the sunshine of better living with allis chalmers power as one stirring ad put ittodays autos industry is still figuring out how to sell evs touting everything from green bragging rights to in the case of ford motor cos forthcoming f150 lightning powering your home in a blackout that one likely resonates more right now those on the opposite side such as the incumbents of the fossilfuels business had their counterparts a century ago too besides livestock breeders dependent trades such as veterinarians grain suppliers tanners and blacksmiths all cast a scornful eye on tractors bodies like the horse and mule association of america were as creative as the american petroleum institute if not more so in their rhetorical fusillades against the upstarts farmers were warned about becoming dependent on the city for machinery and the risk of injury although the latter could rebound given the mules occasional physical harm to the farmer and unlike the tractor a reputed capacity for premeditationit says a lot that when the tractors inarguable efficiency gains could no longer be ignored the pugnacious secretary of the horse and mule association recast this as the inclination of the human race to be lazy adding in words tailormade for a deere campaign that farmers want to get their work done in less timeherein lies the hopeful undercurrent for evs yes it takes a combination of sometimes unforeseen and seemingly unrelated developments to tip the balance toward change but when it happens it quickly acquires the mantle of inevitability and rival technologies tend not to coexist for very longgrim as it is anyone pointing to the obstacle presented by all the investment made already in the internal combustion engine complex should consider the wholesale slaughter of horses and mules that happened well before their time despite all the sunk coststhere will be a new eras version of the mule to displace still the torrent of dollars flowing toward evs from investor portfolios and auto capex budgets suggests the shorting is well underway alreadyalso readview transport sector emissions and moving aheadof estimated 17090 kilotons per year of fine particulate matter pm 25 emission in the country the transport sector emits only 2 and as for greenhouse gases about 75 while the triviality of the figures may not warrant attention their health and climate impacts shouldsee more detailsthe new e10 petrol will it