Electrifying Cars Is A Great Wedge But Far From The Only One
Their apparent prevalence overstates their actual utility as a transportation mode
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were amazing thinkers. Despite being psychologists, Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for Economics, something he would have shared with Tversky had that luminary not passed too soon.
One of their precepts was: “What you see is all there is”. This is key to the availability cognitive bias, where we things that are easily and quickly available to our somewhat conscious minds are assumed to be the dominant paradigm or the answer. For example, I live in a densely populated urban area so when I think about people’s homes, I think about condos and apartments. Meanwhile, deeply thoughtful people I respect live in detached, American single-story homes in the suburbs, and so assume that a lot more people live in them than do, unless they check the numbers.
And so, to cars.
Let’s start with the easy bit. Electrifying them with batteries and electric motors is the answer, it’s the one that’s winning and it’s going to win everywhere except garages like Jay Leno’s, where antique and obsolete cars are lovingly tended to and rarely driven. It’s part of the climate solution that is electrifying everything everywhere…
