## 54 The end of the Car Civilization
What if this is the beginning of the end of car civilization? OK, Melon Musk has just presented his horrible vision of the future with a neo-retro robot minibus and a badly made, robotized Tesla Model 3 to replace public transport. He's gone completely mad. But we are at the climax: A new standard banning internal combustion engines is coming in 2035, or maybe 2040 in most rich countries. A lot of these old cars will migrate to poor countries for decades, but many car owners won't be able to pay for a new one. The growth of all car manufacturers is impossible: too many new manufacturers in China and soon in other countries such as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia and perhaps the BRICS countries. EVs are reshuffling the cards.
But without growth, many old car manufacturers will go under. It's hard to convert an industry with old plants, old workers, old engineers and old methods to build new products like EVs. I see it every day. Ford or GM are not the leaders of today and they won't be the leaders of tomorrow. They have been too lazy and their management too slow to evolve. They are like dinosaurs, only able to cry, shout and make a "job blackmail": Give me money or I'll close down factories and put thousands out of work. It's the same in Europe: look at VW, ready to close factories in Germany, or Fiat in the Stellantis group, paying for years of non-investment. These dinosaurs have been drugged with state subsidies. During their crisis in 2008, 2010, GM, Ford and Chrysler were helped by the USA. But now it's impossible because of the financial situation. It's the same in Europe now, as a result of the SARS-CoV2 crisis, inflation, wars... Even in China, growth is not as expected and some subsidies are being cut. A natural selecti
on? Only the strongest will survive.
EVs are too expensive, that's a fact. You will not "win" money with better consumption because the price of electricity is rising and the current cars are too heavy. Progress in density will probably add 100 or 200 kg in the future for vehicles that weigh 2 tonnes today. That's not enough to really improve energy consumption. The customer is not informed about how to use it, when to charge it efficiently, where to pay less, ... It's too complex today, with too many operators offering chargers at different prices, when it's so easy to go to the petrol station. The customer is still conservative, with more than a century of petrol car habits. And for the moment, the second-hand market is fine for providing a replacement car. There will also be a crisis in the second-hand market. It's not easy to find used EVs at a decent price at the moment. For example, I was looking for an Ioniq 6 and it's at least €41,000 for a 2-year-old car, when a new one is at least €53,000. It's too much compared to the same deprec
iation for a "normal" car.
But to end this car civilization, we need to change our mindset. In big cities, bicycles are back! When I lived in Paris, I didn't need a car. I did everything on foot and sometimes by bike when cycle lanes were rare. Imagine now... But in the suburbs and in the countryside, it's very different, with a lack of shops in the city center, but still big shopping centers and business parks. Public services are too scarce or too far away. I have heard of the concept of the "quarter-hour city", where everything you need is no more than a quarter of an hour away. It's a rich people's problem....But it's discrimination. Only rich regions can offer this to everyone. It's the problem of the next century... But it's an even bigger problem for the global world, from Africa to North Asia, where the population density is sometimes very low or very high, without sufficient energy for everyone. Energy is the key: we must be able to move with less energy. Cars, even electric cars, are too energy intensive. If you look at cons
umption, you'll see that you use less energy than your car in a day for your whole house in a week or more. Imagine someone who is struggling to pay for electricity in their home... or for gas.
Cars are like dinosaurs on the brink of extinction. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it's happening slowly. I won't see the end of it in my lifetime, but it's a problem for me because I work in this industry right now. I'm able to do my job in another industry so I can survive for the next 20 years. But I wouldn't recommend it to young people. I knew someone who wanted to work with cars ... but old cars. That's a good idea, because cars will be in museums for the next century. And when that's not the case, people will be in the museum of the earth.
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