Just a few years ago, electric vehicles were still something of a curiosity in my personal orbit. Not rare, certainly, but unusual enough that most people still gravitated toward the dependable combustion engine. It was familiar. Proven. Unremarkable in the way genuinely useful things often are.
That has changed.
Now even people very close to me drive electric vehicles, and most of them appear genuinely delighted with their decision. The cars are brand new. They are sleek. They are packed with gadgets and glowing screens and enough digital wizardry to keep a teenager entertained for weeks. They are subsidized, fashionable, and wrapped in the comforting aura of moral superiority.
For a certain type of person, that combination is irresistible.
The young are naturally drawn toward novelty. The status-conscious are always searching for the next visible badge of belonging. And modern society has discovered something remarkable: social causes have become luxury accessories. In previous generations people flaunted expensive watches, tailored suits, or exotic vacations. Today they flaunt approved opinions.
Virtue has become a consumer product.
Reality, meanwhile, is invited only if it agrees to remain quiet.
Recently, the wife of a close friend proudly showed off her new electric vehicle. She was glowing with satisfaction, the way people do when they have made a purchase they believe reflects well upon them.
I congratulated her.
After all, it was a new car.
Then she began speaking about the environmental benefits.
And that, unfortunately, opened the door.
I explained, politely enough, that the picture was considerably more complicated than the advertising brochures suggested. I mentioned the enormous industrial footprint required to manufacture batteries. The mining operations. The processing facilities. The steel, cement, rare earths, copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and all the rest of the industrial orchestra required to bring such a machine into existence.
I pointed out that much of the world’s battery supply chain remains deeply dependent on coal-fired power generation.
In effect, I suggested that what appeared to be a clean vehicle often arrives carrying an invisible backpack full of coal.
A very large backpack.
The reaction was immediate.
She stared at me for a moment, looked away, declared that I should be ashamed of myself, and walked off.
Conversation over.
Not because the facts had been disproven.
Not because she possessed better information.
Not because a genuine discussion had taken place.
The discussion ended because I had touched something far more sensitive than a technical question.
I had challenged a status symbol.
Modern environmental narratives often serve a social function that has very little to do with science, engineering, or economics. They provide people with a sense of moral elevation. They offer a way to signal membership in the tribe of the enlightened.
That signal has value.
People invest emotionally in it.
Sometimes financially as well.
And once someone has spent a considerable amount of money purchasing their virtue badge, they become remarkably protective of it.
Nobody enjoys hearing that their expensive moral trophy may be less impressive than advertised.
The irony is almost beautiful.
The same people who insist that everyone must “follow the science” frequently become extraordinarily uncomfortable when presented with scientific, industrial, or logistical realities that fail to support the narrative they have adopted.
Reality becomes an unwelcome guest.
Not because it is wrong.
Because it is inconvenient.
The electric vehicle itself is not the problem. Like any technology, it has strengths and weaknesses. In some applications it works brilliantly. In others it makes very little sense. Technology is neither saint nor sinner.
The real issue is the mythology built around it.
The car is no longer merely transportation. It has become a moral statement.
And moral statements are notoriously difficult to examine critically because criticism is interpreted as a personal attack.
Tell someone their engine is inefficient and they may shrug.
Tell them their virtue is inefficient and they react as if you have insulted their ancestors.
This is not limited to electric vehicles, of course. It applies to countless modern narratives. Entire industries now revolve around selling people the feeling of righteousness.
The product is secondary.
The emotional reward is primary.
What people are truly buying is the comforting belief that they stand on the correct side of history.
That belief is worth far more than any car.
Which explains why challenging it is received so poorly.
The activists are easy to dismiss. They are obvious. They wear the uniform. They wave the banners. They make careers out of outrage.
The more interesting phenomenon is the ordinary person.
The neighbor.
The colleague.
The relative.
The perfectly normal individual who has absorbed the narrative so completely that questioning it feels like an act of aggression.
Not because they are stupid.
Not because they are malicious.
But because the narrative has become part of their identity.
And identity is defended far more fiercely than facts.
The woman who walked away from me was not an activist. She was not a politician. She was not a professional campaigner.
She was simply someone who had purchased a story along with a car.
The vehicle was real.
The story was the product.
And when you puncture the story, even gently, you discover how much of modern society runs not on evidence, not on engineering, not on economics, but on the intoxicating power of purchased virtue.
Reality, meanwhile, waits patiently in the background.
It always does.
Sooner or later, the bill arrives.
https://www.masterresource.org/electric-vehicles/ev-guy-lost-social-media/