I am a theoretical physicist and retired Director of UCITE (University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. My latest book THE GREAT PARADOX OF SCIENCE: Why its conclusions can be relied upon even though they cannot be proven was published by Oxford University Press in December 2019. I am the author of three other books: God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom (2009), The Achievement Gap in US Education: Canaries in the Mine (2005), and Quest for Truth: Scientific Progress and Religious Beliefs (2000).
You can email me at mano'”dot'”singham”‘at”‘case'”dot'”edu.
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We seem to be living in a time when the most mundane actions take on political significance.
Take for example the wearing of masks. Rather than taking it at face value, which is that the wearer may have reduced immunity or is taking a cautious approach to the transmission of infection diseases and is trying to avoid getting infected or infect others, some view it as the wearer making a political statement in support of the vaccination lobby and the medical-pharmaceutical-Fauci axis of evil and against freedom-loving Merkins.
The same thing seems to be happening with Tesla cars where drivers report being harassed by other users, often by people driving big, gas-guzzling, smoke-belching trucks. The animosity seems to not be against Tesla particularly but against people who, by driving an electric vehicle, are seen as signaling that they are concerned about the environment.
Teslas are common in the Bellevue, Washington, area, where Theresa Ramsdell lives and has owned two models since 2016. “People cut us off on the freeway, give us the finger, yell at me through the windows,” she said. “A couple of people have not exactly tried to push me off the road, but drive real close to the side of my car and smile. It’s happened to me twice going at 65 mph and it’s scary.”
Marc Geller, spokesperson for the Electric Vehicle Association and a Tesla owner himself, has owned a battery-powered car of some sort since 2000. He said that road rage traditionally came from rightwingers who see the electric vehicle drivers as crunchy liberals.
The reason that Tesla drivers are being targeted may have little to do with Elon Musk’s shenanigans. It is probably because even though many car manufacturers now produce electric vehicles, that is just one part of their fleet. You cannot immediately tell from the car’s brand whether it is electric or not without examining it closely, whereas Tesla is uniquely identified with it.
It will be interesting to see if whether now that Musk is acting like any other right-wing, Trump loving, liberal-bashing troll, those who have been harassing Tesla drivers will now see him as one of their own and suddenly switch to supporting the car brand that is identified with him. They might begin to view Tesla drivers a making a statement in support of Musk though that is as silly as viewing mask wearers as supporters of Anthony Fauci.
Marc Geller, spokesperson for the Electric Vehicle Association and a Tesla owner himself, has owned a battery-powered car of some sort since 2000. He said that road rage traditionally came from rightwingers who see the electric vehicle drivers as crunchy liberals.
But now that Musk has become something of a conservative hero – telling his followers to vote Republican in the midterms and reinstating Donald Trump’s Twitter account – he’s a foe to many electric vehicle fans, too.
“There’s an irony here in that Teslas have long been a hate magnet for various reasons,” Geller said. “They were the subject of road rage because they represented the environment and were perceived as the vehicular embodiment of that culture war. But now here we are, and some folks on the left are having a knee-jerk reaction because Elon Musk has taken this ominous turn to the political right, so now they’re throwing the same bricks.”
Sometimes a car is just a car.
Matt G says
Long before there *were* EVs, car ownership was political. If you bought a foreign car in the US, you were anti-American. I used to joke that while the Buy American people might own an American car, every other possession was made in China.
keithb says
“I used to joke that while the Buy American people might own an American car, every other possession was made in China.” And a lot of the car was probably made in China. For a while now buying an American car simply means that the only part of the American economy you are supporting (as far as the car itself is concerned) is enriching American executives.
Also, there have always been EVs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle
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