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If you tune in strange eye Next season, you can find the “Fab Five” discussing the transformative power of a carefully curated upgrade from inside a zero-emissions Hummer pickup. The placement is part of a new deal between Netflix and General Motors to include electric vehicles on the streaming service, a deal that both companies are promoting as a step toward “creating a better, more sustainable future for our world.” . But the idea that putting electric vehicles on TV shows is cutting-edge progressivism seems a little dated. Even the prospect of the Hummer EV, a gas-guzzling icon transformed into a green mode of transportation, seems as transgressive and edgy as strange eye same in 2023, that is: not much.
Electric vehicles are… normal now. Lots of people drive them for lots of reasons, not just your colorful hippie aunt or your techie brother-in-law who won’t shut up with his Tesla Model S. They’re just cars. Electric vehicles accounted for 5.8 percent of cars sold in the United States in 2022, up from just over 3 percent a year earlier. In California, nearly 18 percent of new cars sold are fully electric. Thanks in part to tax breaks and incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, the price of electric vehicles is also coming down to parity with the price of gas cars.
But incentives and competitive pricing can only do so much. People have to do it to want to buy the car If we are to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, much of the country will have to switch to electric vehicles. Making electric cars cool could help. But there’s something even better on the horizon, mass adoption-wise. We may be at the dawn of the boring EV.
If we want to reduce emissions, electric vehicles must be seen as the safe, normal and default option. And the cultural place of electric vehicles (and the hybrids that paved the way for them) in American life can be tracked by examining how they appear on screen. The acceptance of electric vehicles, at least through the prism of pop culture, has moved through four main phases.
Phase 1: electric vehicles as a signifier of the future. In keeping with its general theme of cutting-edge technology, 1993 Jurassic Park featured electric Ford Explorers that powered through a track on the ground (neat, but bad for escaping T. rexes). Or consider the 1997 film Gattaca, set in a retro future. As part of that vibe, the film included older cars, including a 1965 Citroën DS 19 Cabriolet and a 1971 Buick Riviera. But the cars were silent, or made only soft sounds, suggesting that they were all electric.
Phase 2: electric vehicles and hybrids as signifiers of serious liberalism. After the first Prius came out in 1997, having a character drive a hybrid became an easy way to tell viewers something about their politics or personality. Larry David follows Curb your enthusiasm he drives a Prius. In season 2 of Bad weedswhich aired in 2006, soccer mom turned drug dealer Nancy trades in her Range Rover for a Prius, signifying a shift to a more environmentally conscious outlook.
Phase 3: Electric vehicles as expensive toys. Tony Stark had a Tesla Roadster from the first iron man movie, in 2008. Love him or hate him, Elon Musk made electric vehicles cool when they were stuck in Squaresville, and Telsa has become the hip-hop brand of the day. The first trailer came out on Friday quick x, the tenth installment of the street racing giant. For the first time, the franchise will feature at least a couple of electric cars, including the Dodge Daytona SRT EV concept car and the never-before-seen DeLorean Alpha 5. (Yes, it has gullwing doors). What is crucial about this era. is that these cars that are “green” have become a drawback. They are simply striking and cool. Electric vehicles have started to become the norm, although they are still out of the price range for most viewers. This phase is not over, but another phase is emerging alongside it.
Phase 4: Electric vehicles as just a car, a regular vehicle. In the near future, electric vehicles will be in the movies and on TV constantly, and they won’t say anything in particular about the characters who drive them. When Dr. Jo Wilson arrives at the hospital in a Nissan Leaf in season 18 of Grey’s Anatomy, it doesn’t mean anything deep. It’s what happens to driving. The lead in M3GANthe 2022 sentient doll horror movie, drives an all-electric BMW i3 and is completely irrelevant to the plot.
This new phase is ready because electric vehicles are finally becoming ubiquitous; in some markets, they are the everyday choice rather than interesting pieces meant to stand out. You don’t hear Kia EV6 screams in rap lyrics, but you do see them lining up in wealthy suburbs for school pickup. “I don’t know if they’re normal, but they’re undeniable,” says James Pumphrey of Donut Media, a car and truck YouTube channel with more than 7.3 million subscribers, mostly teens and 20s. According to Pumphrey, the Tesla Model 3 or Model Y has replaced the Audi A4 or BMW 3 Series as the car that says: Hey, I’m doing pretty well as a young professional. Today, you don’t buy a Model 3 because it’s wild and different. You buy it because it’s a safe option.
If we really are entering an era where electric cars are just cars, that will go a long way toward accelerating EV adoption in the U.S. And aside from the quiet hum of the freeway or the suddenly cleaner air, a world where most cars on the road don’t emit planet-toasting fumes will also be a place where it feels good to love cars again. It may take some boring EVs to make them the default, but once they’ve taken over, there will also be a whole host of fun, fast and interesting electric options to play with. ‘gear can be animated.
At Donut Media, you can find a video about putting massive gas-guzzling V-8s into Nissan 350Zs, but you can also find an 18-minute video that ranks electric cars by how many seconds it takes them to reach 60 miles per time . (Apparently, some of them can hit 60 in less than two seconds.) If you’re a car enthusiast who keeps up with new models, you need to get excited about electric vehicles. GM and other automakers have announced plans to close or shrink their internal combustion engine development divisions in the coming decades. Electricity is where the innovation is. The hot-rodding community is slower, but Pumphrey says it’s potentially just as much fun as jailbreaking your phone or building a gaming PC. “We’re really on the cusp of something super exciting,” he told me. It will be interesting to see if any of the more affordable electrics are adopted by modders the way boring cars like the Honda Civic and Volvo 240 have been.
There are caveats, of course. Electric vehicles have an environmental footprint. Its batteries, in particular, rely on minerals such as lithium and cobalt, which must be mined from the ground. So there’s still a good argument for reducing the number of cars on the planet, electric or not. And any car will still be expensive, bulky and expensive to maintain. The true auto topia will be the day when driving a car is 100% optional for those who would rather not own one, and 100% guilt-free for those who love them.
For these people, there is a lot to love. Take the Porsche Taycan, an all-electric sports car that’s fast, powerful and objectively gorgeous, especially in Cherry Metallic. Pumphrey got to drive one, and said the experience was nothing short of magical, at once familiarly Porsche but also new. “It’s like a new sound. It’s like a new way to turn on the power. It’s a new form of acceleration. It was a beautiful experience.” He even, he confessed, got a little foggy. “I was like, Oh man, I’ve never heard that.“
From the sensible commuter to the rugged off-roader to the silky-smooth sports car, the time when electric cars are just cars is not far off. Electric vehicles just need to be a little more boring. The day Americans stop noticing them on their screens is the day the electric car will actually arrive.
