MY REACTION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This article by Chris Paine basically triggers anger to the reader. This is because, all the electric vehicles were destroyed without giving any consideration to the people who invested so much time, energy and resources to build them and make them a success. Civilians and activists who felt this was not right protested and demonstrated but this bore no fruits. Instead, however, majority of them ended up getting arrested and ill treated. This is infuriating since everyone is entitled to their own opinion and they have the right to express themselves.
It is my opinion that the destruction of these electric vehicles was unnecessary and the motive behind it was ill intended. This perhaps could be attributed to the fact that the oil companies were weary that the emergence of these vehicles would interfere with their monopoly in the oil transportation over the coming years. Automobile companies on the other hand feared that if the electric vehicle were allowed to join the market, they would dominate it leaving them to suffer immense losses. This was attributed by the fact that the electric vehicles required little capital to make and maintain (Virine & Trumper 64). This would make them more favorable to consumers. Therefore all these reasons in my opinion were based on the self centeredness of these companies as they offered no genuine reasons for their disapproval of the electric vehicles. The GM spokesman on the other hand based his reasons on the fact that the consumers were not at all interested in these new vehicles. This however seemed far fetched since how could they come up such a conclusion when all they had done was give this vehicles bad publicity. Rather than giving the consumers time to decide for themselves, they decided to rush and destroy the vehicles.
It is my opinion that the automobile industry is intent on keeping motorists enslaved to the dark era of relying on crude oil yet other industries are developing and adopting new and modern innovations. This is very unfair since gas prices keep fluctuating and people have to live with this menace while a possible solution is overlooked in the electric vehicle. This raises the question why people should suffer and carry this burden.
The fact that these EV1 vehicles could not travel long distances should not be used as a reason to ban them. This is because as is the case with every new commodity in the market, the few kinks that existed would have been improved and refined with time and with the development of future newer models. Moreover, much as most of the blame was focused on the oil industries, they were not entirely to blame for this. This is because, at that time the government in California had passed a law that required that at least 2% of all new cars being developed be emission free, hence the EV1 were made in conformity. This was in 1998 and yet, this mandate was never upheld. Therefore the government officials at the time were also to blame to some extent (Virine & Trumper 35).
In my opinion, the EV1 vehicle ought to be returned to the market and the consumers b\e let to decide for them. This is supported by the fact that all of its previous owners have nothing but praises for the car and none ever came forward to complain. Moreover, all the people who lost their jobs when the EV1 project was stopped should be compensated accordingly by the responsible parties.
Works cited
Virine, Lev & Trumper, Michael. Project Decisions: The Art and Science. California: Management concepts, 2007.
