Lente Festina

America Needs More Than Electric Cars

Trained as an environmental engineer, I am delighted to see the deliberate and dedicated shift of most auto companies to electric vehicles. Of course, in the final analysis, these companies are not necessarily leading the way based on an enlightened, sustainable vision for the future but responding to a market demand and existential necessity.

Writing from Dearborn, Michigan, it is impossible not to see the impact of Henry Ford in bringing the automobile to the masses, ostensibly to improve the quality of lives. Although Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, he created the first assembly line allowing economical production. He envisioned a future that few others had, famously saying that if the people were asked what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

Yet as laudable as it is for the auto companies to respond to a consumer demand for carbon neutral sustainable transportation, we continue to rely on a mode of transportation that has not necessarily served us as well as could be envisioned.  

Even with electric cars, we will still have traffic jams, soul-draining long commutes, deadly accidents, and highways dividing communities. 

Some of the unintended and insidious consequences of multi-car families include urban sprawl, diminishment of ecological systems, and devaluing walking, cycling, and public transportation, none of which will be ameliorated by electric cars.

In fact, more “sustainable” and autonomous automobiles may seal our Faustian bargain, where we sell our souls for the supreme sustainable convenient conveyance. And yet when many Americans visit European countries that are not autocentric, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, they envy the lifestyle.

It may be time to step back and consider our desired end point. A few years back, when Jim Hackett was CEO, Ford tried to take a more holistic view of the future with a Complete Communities approach. Complete Communities create strategies to increase mobility choices and provide enhanced opportunities for places to walk, cycle, relax, and play. These communities are intended to optimize the quality of life. Sadly, this corporate-wide effort lost steam when Jim left Ford. Nonetheless, Ford continues to be interested in the concept, pursuing a scaled-down version for one of their new Detroit facilities and its surrounding environs. 

It is time for all auto-companies and governments to revisit this approach not just for a niche enclave in Detroit, but for all communities, coast to coast. It would be in our, and our children’s, best interest to consider what we want life in America to be, not only in the next financial quarter or 10 years but, borrowing the paradigm of Native Americans, seven generations hence. This will take bold, visionary, and determined leadership that will look beyond fast horses to more complete communities. Just as in the time of Henry Ford, Detroit could once again take the lead in creating a new future for the American people.