ABSTRACT
The car is the most important artefact to emerge from the twentieth century. Although, strictly speaking, a nineteenth-century invention, its full impact was not felt until the twentieth century, but that impact, when it came, was overwhelming. Car use and car making are linked within the current mass production/consumption-based business model and we cannot tackle one without tackling the other. Underlying the need to deal with these issues from a decarbonization point of view, two principal threats are of prime importance. First is the question of climate change; second is the peaking of key resources, notably oil (Heinberg, 2007). Car use represents a major contribution to both of these looming crises. The public appears blissfully unaware of the latter, while climate change scepticism also appears to be on the rise again, informed perhaps not so much by the science as by the fact that most people cannot conceive of a world without ready access to their car. A significant part of the answer to both problems is to decarbonize the car. Action on this is urgently needed.
