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Advertising always tells us that we can improve our lives by buying a new product. But they are promising something more and more different. Now they suggest we buy our own way to maintain the lifestyle we already have, made from new materials (steel rods, hemp tees) or armed with redesigned products to not burp annoying exhaust (electric vehicles). The status quo they promised may remain without much ecological damage.
“Make It Revolutionary” joins this tradition and helps us see its blind spots. While Ford’s first electric pickup won’t go on sale until next spring, it’s no coincidence that Zhao gave the pickups more screen time than any other car. In America, the company’s F-series pickups outstripped all other vehicles of any type for 39 years; pickups account for about half of Ford’s total sales and possibly an even higher percentage of its profits. That’s what Ford customers want. But that doesn’t mean they’re must-haves for customers. Buyers are a threat to most accounting. Compared to sedans, they are more likely to crash into pedestrians and injure or kill the person they bump into. (Same for SUVs) Even when powered by batteries, they will use more energy than electric sedans (which can still come from fossil fuels), and their larger batteries will use less minerals and produce more chemical waste. A recent ad for the upcoming electric GMC Hummer “supertruck” seemed to celebrate this massive impact, featuring CGI images of a Hummer falling from the sky and crashing into a city street, forming a massive crater.
Internal combustion engines like coal power plants, single-use plastics and much more need to disappear on a faster timetable than any American company suggests. However, experts increasingly agree that this should be just the beginning – that the vision for an environmentally sustainable future should involve far fewer cars and smaller cars and far fewer driving times. Similar transformations can be expected across the economy and in our entire lives. Any future we can believe in will be less desirable for what it shares with the past and more for how it deviates in new directions.
To get there, simply replacing our current purchases and current lives with slightly more productive ones will not be enough. We will need to let many old habits fly away and replace them with new ones. This is, by definition, a revolutionary idea—not one you’re likely to hear in a car commercial anytime soon.
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