Every car company, just about, has committed to building several electric cars, at the least. Some – like Volvo – to building only electrified cars. But without something different under the hood – electric motors and batteries being pretty much the same, other than some being larger, others smaller – why even bother with these brands?

Especially brands like Porsche – which is among the EV beguiled. A silent (and shiftless, electric motors are one speed) Porsche is like a 2×4 among the stacks of them at Home Depot. Would you pay four times as much for the 2×4 that has “Porsche” stamped on it?

Cars are becoming interchangeable modules – and one only needs so many versions of the same thing. Red or white or blue? A larger – or smaller – touchscreen?

This homogenization of transportation may not be deliberate – it’s mostly the result of decades of government mandates, which have had the effect of imposing a general sameness on vehicle design – but it serves a definite purpose:

It detaches people emotionally from cars – and from driving…

Cars are becoming places where you sit for awhile.

And this is probably exactly what GM – and Ford – ultimately have in mind. This isn’t even a wild-eyed supposition. They have said so – openly. GM’s announcement earlier this week about the mass die-off of its passenger car lineup was accompanied by soothsaying about the company’s “transition(s) to self-driving electric” cars.

Which gives the lie to the odd prattle about “focusing on trucks and SUVs,” the fatuity eructed by Mary Barra and her amen chorus when the death knell tolled. How, exactly, will GM “focus” on such vehicles when the 50 MPG CAFE fatwa goes into effect come 2025? And what is Barra up to, given she has to know that not a single truck or SUV GM makes – or can make and still qualify as a truck or SUV – rates anything close to 50 MPG?

What was it Sherlock Holmes said?

The game’s afoot!

Be seeing you

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