The Guardian view on electric cars: they'll change the world | Editorial

Car drivers dream of freedom and autonomy but the future may be robotic public transportThe end of the age of the internal combustion engine is in sight. There are small signs everywhere: the shift to hybrid vehicles is already under way among manufacturers. Volvo has announced it will make no purely petrol-engined cars after 2019; the British government expects the all-electric future to arrive by 2040; and Tesla has just started selling its first electric car aimed squarely at the middle classes: the Tesla 3 sells for $35,000 in the US, and 400,000 people have put down a small, refundable deposit towards one. Several thousand have already taken delivery, and the company hopes to sell half a million more next year. This is a remarkable figure for a machine with a fairly short range and a very limited number of specialised charging stations.Some of it reflects the remarkable abilities of Elon Musk, the company's founder, as a salesman, engineer, and a man able to get the most out his factory workers and the governments he deals with. An LA Times investigation concluded that his enterprises have benefited from nearly $5bn in government subsidies, while the workers who actually build the cars used to have to put in 12-hour shifts, six days a week. The share price suggests that the company is bigger than Ford, though it makes a tiny fraction of the number of cars - and most years loses enormous sums of money. Mr Musk is selling a dream that the world wants to believe in. Continue reading...