Electric Vehicles and the Coming Disruption in the Oil Market–More Discussion

There has been some interesting discussion on my recent post: Electric Vehicles and the Coming Disruption in the Oil Market, including some back-and-forth about the unhappy fate of General Motors’ concept electric vehicle “EV-1,” and the allegation that GM sabotaged the effort so that the status quo with oil companies could remain in place.

I’ll be the first to admit that whatever subterfuge went down re: GM and the EV-1 is of historical interest at best.  In certain respects, it’s not unlike the demolition of the trolley system in Los Angeles in 1934, in that we can’t turn back the hands of time, regardless of who did what to whom.

The latter was clearly an example of corporate greed and collusion (on the part of Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California (now Chevron Corporation) and perhaps not coincidentally, General Motors itself), that resulted in a huge assault to the short-term quality of life for the people of the region, and, far worse, for the long-term health of the environment, both locally with the killing smog, and globally, as this was a watershed point in the development of cars and trucks (which currently number more than one billion worldwide) and the relegating of public transportation into relative insignificance.

While it’s true that we can’t reverse the past, we may very well be successful at crafting a future that heads in a positive direction, i.e., changing the laws that govern the rights and basic nature of corporations.  This, of course, is what the movement to overturn Citizens United is all about. This infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision of 2010 gave corporations the right to spend as much as they wish to influence our elections, thus rendering our democracy a sham by neutering the will of “We the people.”

Of course, Citizens United is opposed by progressives, but, more interestingly, it’s reviled by people of all political stripes, including the far right Tea Party whose core belief is the restoration of the government intended by the Founding Fathers.  For this reason, the decision likely would not have survived more than another year or two had it not been for the unfortunate turn in U.S. politics (Donald Trump and his Supreme Court appointee, the corporate-friendly Neil Gorsuch), which provided a considerable headwind to the movement to overturn it.

Still, good people everywhere remain confident that justice will ultimately prevail.  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  ― Martin Luther King Jr.