Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability
Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability – Review
Talking in TV terms, this book is “didactic documentary”. Try to imagine something like Discovery miniseries entirely devoted to various parts of future transportation. Now remove half of the entertainment and you get the idea. The book illustrates historical and current situation in large part of problems, ranging from municipal transportation, alternative fuels, vehicle designs and to global warming and peak oil theories. For my taste the book lacks engineering discussions, mostly focusing on political parts of problems. I too wished it has not closely resembled textbook too much. Finally I should warn about some bias toward California and against Detroit. For example, when methanol, pushed by California as alternative fuel is accounted for fuel economy credits for automakers, this is a nice thing. But when ethanol is accounted for the same, that’s of course, a terrible thing. Another example is when after twenty pages of (rightly) Prius glorification reader finds three lines about GM-Volt along with critical remark on its excessive cost and impending failure. What I like about this book is scope of coverage and realism. Authors take to cover approximately every topic closely related to the title and they do not seek to build for reader the rapturous pictures of the future. So next time you stand in the airport in front of a bookstand trying to decide between another bestseller and magazine – try this one instead.