Certainly, the current orthodoxy
is that batteries are the way of the
future, driven by the need to slash
the carbon emissions of transport.
It is, though, a lot more complicated
than merely taking out an engine and
replacing it with an electric motor.
Thirty-something years ago, I was
sat on the floor of my grandmother’s
living room, with a stack of old
Reader’s Digest in front of me. In
one, I found a piece on the 100th
anniversary of Mercedes-Benz.
In this feature, a senior Mercedes
engineer was asked what cars we'd
be driving in 20 years’ time.
“Well...” he replied with the
confidence only a German car
engineer can display; “We design
our cars to last for at least 30 years,
so we will be driving the cars we are
making today.”
THE ELECTRIC REVOLUTION: WHAT'S NEXT?
78 • DECEMBER 2021
In many ways, the man from
Mercedes was right—some 35
years on from me reading those
words, we are for the most part still
driving around in cars that are not
fundamentally different from those
then coming off the production lines
in Stuttgart, in Tokyo, in Detroit, in
Turin. In the next 20 years, though?
Even the most confident engineer
might now baulk at being too precise
in their predictions. The rise of the
electric car is going to change what
the very word "car" means.
One who thinks that we’re on
the cusp of just that is Stephen
Bayley. Bayley is a founder of
London’s Design Museum, an
art and architecture critic, and
as the vernacular would have it,
a petrolhead. He’s long been a
correspondent for the motoringTHE FUTURE
OF MOTORING
IS ELECTRIC.
ISN’T IT?