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   From: patriot1@protonmail.com   
      
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   How electric cars became a battleground in the culture wars   
      
   EVs have become weaponised amid fears over cost of shift to battery power   
   and job losses at carmakers   
   by Jasper Jolly   
   Fri 4 Aug 2023 09.00 EDT   
   Last modified on Mon 28 Aug 2023 10.37 EDT   
      
   Three pickup trucks lined up on a highway in front of a Tesla in Phoenix,   
   Arizona, to form a rolling roadblock. The Tesla driver, a computer   
   scientist, moved lane to wait for them to let him past. What came next was   
   unexpected: a video on social media from the incident in June shows a   
   belch of acrid black smoke from the engine of one of the trucks,   
   enveloping the electric car following behind.   
      
   The Tesla driver had been caught by a “rolling coal”, a deliberate   
   modification of a diesel engine to increase the engine’s horsepower –   
   while also dramatically increasing pollution. It is also illegal: Sinister   
   Diesel, one of the companies selling “defeat devices” used to roll coal,   
   agreed to pay a $1m (£780,000) fine this week for breaking environmental   
   laws.   
      
   It was not a one-off. Since at least 2014 rolling coal has become a symbol   
   of dirty protest against the rise of electric vehicles (EVs). Around the   
   world, the electric car has been caught up in the culture wars, as   
   tensions grow around the shift from the era of fossil fuels to net zero   
   carbon emissions.   
   A video from a Tesla Model 3 driver showing the fumes from three trucks in   
   Phoenix, Arizona.   
   A video from a Tesla Model 3 driver showing the fumes from three trucks in   
   Phoenix, Arizona. Photograph: @NateWiki   
      
   Those tensions are multifaceted: they range from concerns about the cost   
   of upgrading from petrol and diesel to battery power; to fears about   
   automotive job losses from Detroit in Michigan to Coventry in the West   
   Midlands; to “range anxiety” – how far an EV can travel on a charge; to   
   China’s rise as an EV superpower; to the car as a symbol of personal   
   freedom akin to the second amendment right to bear arms in the US.   
      
   Electrification is vital. Road transport accounts for 15% of global carbon   
   emissions that need to be cut to zero by 2050 to prevent global heating   
   reaching catastrophic levels. It will also helpfully reduce particulate   
   emissions, improving air quality and cutting disease in smoggy cities. But   
   the scale of the challenge is vast.   
      
   “There is an underlying trend of the EV being weaponised as a political   
   tool,” says Andy Palmer, a former head of the luxury carmaker Aston Martin   
   – itself wrestling with the shift from hydrocarbons to electrons – and now   
   the interim leader of car charger company Pod Point. “It has become a   
   political football.”   
      
       There is an underlying trend of the EV being weaponised as a political   
   tool   
      
   Andy Palmer   
      
   Politicians, newspapers and TV presenters from the right in particular are   
   drawing battle lines that crudely divide the supposedly eco-conscious   
   wealthy in their electric cars (and trains) from the hard-pressed working-   
   class in their cheap but essential petrols and diesels.   
      
   Car tribalism could be back in the White House soon. In the US Donald   
   Trump last week told a crowd in the US automotive heartland of Michigan   
   that President Joe Biden wanted to “decimate” the industry by pushing for   
   two-thirds of US sales to be electric by 2032. But the dividing lines are   
   blurred: few have done more damage to the combustion engine’s cause than   
   Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, a hero of the libertarian right.   
   Elon Musk during a delivery event for Tesla China-made Model 3 cars in   
   Shanghai in 2020.   
   Elon Musk in Shanghai in 2020. The Tesla chief executive is a hero of the   
   libertarian right. Photograph: Aly Song/Reuters   
      
   The battle has reached Downing Street. The UK is undergoing a pre-election   
   spasm of car politics after a Conservative candidate narrowly defended the   
   former seat of the ex-prime minister Boris Johnson in Uxbridge, north   
   London. Steve Tuckwell’s campaign focused on cancelling the extension of   
   the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), a policy of the Labour   
   mayor, Sadiq Khan, that will result in drivers of older petrol and diesel   
   cars being charged £12.50 to enter the capital from the end of August.   
      
   Johnson introduced Ulez as mayor, and brought in the 2030 ban on the sale   
   of new petrol and diesel cars as prime minister. Yet his one-time ally and   
   successor, Rishi Sunak, last month gave only tepid support to the ban, and   
   senior Tories considered a U-turn before eventually acknowledging the   
   policy would not change – although some changes to intermediate sales   
   targets may come. Sunak has pivoted away from electric cars to argue he   
   was on the side of motorists – in an effort to pit himself against “anti-   
   motorist” Labour. (His only intervention appears to be a woolly review of   
   “low-traffic neighbourhoods”, raising the prospect of Westminster deciding   
   on bollard placement around the country.)   
   Anti-Ulez protesters   
   The protest against the Ulez in London has become highly politicised.   
   Photograph: Martin Pope/Getty Images   
      
   In France the far-right Marine Le Pen seized on the gilets jaunes (yellow   
   vests) movement against Emmanuel Macron – which started as a protest about   
   fuel duty increases, while in Germany coalition politics was briefly   
   roiled by the Free Democratic party’s successful push for a loophole that   
   would allow the continued sale of petrol and diesel cars as long as they   
   use net zero efuels that are made using carbon captured from the air.   
      
   Cars and the roads have always been “very contested objects” and status   
   symbols for owners, says Yunis Alam, the head of sociology at the   
   University of Bradford and the author of Race, Taste, Class and Cars. That   
   ranges from working-class owners adding spoilers as a form of self-   
   expression, to the limos of the wealthy (and the middle classes’ studied   
   indifference in between).   
      
   “Most of the world now is governed by the car,” says Alam, and “at the   
   moment it seems to have found itself in this ‘culture war’ space”.   
      
       Most of the world now is governed by the car and at the moment it   
   seems to have found itself in this ‘culture war’ space   
      
   Yunis Alam   
      
   “It’s very short term, and it’s very political with a small ‘p’,” he says.   
   “Cars tie in to our sense of liberty and freedom,” making them attractive   
   to the purveyors of rightwing politics. However, he disputes whether that   
   truly is the sole domain of the political right, arguing the UK government   
   is insincerely appropriating leftwing discourse about equality and concern   
   for the less wealthy.   
      
   There is certainly some cause for concern when it comes to jobs. The   
   nature of the electric car, which has far fewer components than its fossil   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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