crude oil is a commodity valuable enough to warrant bloodshed, a fact we Americans are all too familiar with by now. As the world’s most easily-accessed oil reserves disappear, we reach ever higher for our fruit, extracting oil from tar sands and the sea floor. Our thirst for petroleum products will strain this natural resource to the breaking point, and we may one day find ourselves parched.
Now, I’m not saying the globe’s oil reserves are on the brink of drying; I am no petroleum industry expert. Because of our global climate condition, however, I believe we must be prepared for a future independent of oil, regardless of the ramifications it has for our love of old cars. Try as we might to save the Otto cycle, policymakers may push planned bans on the sale of new internal combustion cars down a slippery slope, at the bottom of which we might not find our classic gassers grandfathered in. I am just as disinterested as any car enthusiast in turning my MR2 into a garage ornament, so I welcome any salvation I am offered for my love of driving.
One hope of mine is the option of EV conversion. While my goal is to maintain the Toyota turbo-four heart of my car, the contingency plan is that of battery power, a possibility inspired by Evie, an electric Ford Fairlane, which I spotlighted not long ago. Evie was commissioned by a renewable energy producer, Mercury, based in New Zealand, and is used for promotional purposes. I spoke to Mercury for more information on Evie, such as the car’s construction and driving experience, to reassure myself that my worst nightmare—a transplant of an electric motor into my MR2—is maybe not so bad after all.
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