Ever since I was a small kid, I held an affinity for cool and sometimes quirky cars. In addition to thumbing through hip hop magazines at Walgreens, I’d look through Motor Trend or Car and Driver faithfully. Really, any print magazine about cars or hip hop I’d view with no desire (or cash) to buy. Instead, I’d buy some gummy bears or a pack of gum as my way of being an actual patron. This of course when gum went up to $0.35 for a 5 pack. Now they sell the same gum in packs of 35 sticks for $3.69 and the 5 pack no longer exists…that’s not the point of this post, but I am a bit salty about that. The point is that I have always been a car guy and into the new car technology. No idea where it comes from, but it still remains something I do, but in this digital era I browse websites and YouTube for my information.

Back in 2009 I vowed to get a Tesla Model S when it came out. The renderings I saw in 2008 were pretty cool and the actual prototype from 2009 (shown in the main picture above) looked good, albeit very Mazda like in my opinion. The only tech at the time was that it was purely a battery car, and fast. I wanted to do right by the environment and all the marketing sounded like this would be the perfect car. Now that I’m older and I’ve done boatloads of research I now know that electric cars are just as bad for the environment, in most cases worse than gas powered cars. Along with that, the tech crazed push of Tesla has inspired other brands to make their cars mentally numbing to the driver as well.  

Waving my cane

Here we are 11 years since the Model S rolled out, and I’d be willing to bet we’ve all noticed more Tesla’s around town. The tech has been upgraded in them and the owner profile has gotten a lot more douche bag like. Most EV owners are a mixed bag of well to do tree huggers, rich hipsters and tech obsessed pseudo car enthusiasts. Very rarely do I encounter EV owners that fall outside of these 3…but it has happened a few times. I test drove a Tesla with my sister a few years back, and it delivered everything I expected (speed and tech), but it kinda scared me too. The cruise control basically drives the car for you, an element I’m not interested in, and that has proven to be fatal a few times.

Settle down grandpa

My brother would absolutely say I’m missing the point of this technological advancement that allows people to behave like idiots while the car chauffeurs them around. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m a young in age, rickety old man in spirit that longs for the days of people paying attention to the road. Truly, I’m amazed at how far we have devolved as a society that we don’t really engage or connect with anything anymore. Of course, not all of us, but those of us that do “what used to be normal things” are seen as weird. When was the last time you called someone without texting them first? How about driven somewhere without GPS? How about going more than 3 blocks from your house without a phone or other tracking device on you? And if it was done accidentally, cool, but when was the last time any of these things were done intentionally and consistently?

I recognize that the rich are getting richer, and the masses are getting desensitized to the world, which allows the marginally rich to also get rich. Meanwhile, the poor are getting poorer for sure and the dumb are getting dumber. It seems the world around us is less safe in every way compared to just 12 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things I appreciate about the new tech, video games look cooler, TV’s look better, processing many things is faster. However, the convenience of being able to do everything with a thumb or two, seems to have hit us more like a sedative than something that gives us more time to be productive. We don’t even drive our cars any more…how crazy is that!

OK I’m done

Yup, this was my old man rant about technology and the good old days before the iPhone. It was also a middle finger to the guy I’m likely to see on the road this morning…similar to people many of you may see on your commutes to work as well. When texting, my phone still gets the autocorrect wrong sometimes, now we have cars autocorrecting our driving. I still prefer to feel the world around me, but it’s more apparent than ever that this makes me a dinosaur. Damn.