Innovative fuel development heralds new era in transport

A short metaphor for modern life which may sound familiar

*** This is NOT a metaphor about Electric Vehicles ***

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Imagine buying a car that ran on a special fuel that meant you can only drive it 30% of the time.

Then imagine that you have no choice when you can drive it. It often works on days when you are not going anywhere but, annoyingly, will not start when you need it most.

Sometimes when it starts its top speed varies from 5 and 70mph.

Ideally it will be working ok when you have an urgent hospital appointment, or need to get to the airport for your holiday or just need to get into work. But it’s a lottery.

To rub salt into the wound, this special car is much more expensive and much larger than your old car. Its size means it doesn’t fit in your garage. Luckily you have a small driveway but it’s an eyesore.

As realisation dawns that this new car will make your life very difficult, you think about how you came to buy it in the first place. You remember the salesman explaining that it would be a great buy. The special fuel was so cheap it was almost being given away. In fact some days they would pay you to use it - really!

So what do you do?

One option would be to get involved in a local car pool, if you can find one. The problem is that everyone else is buying into the special fuel transition. What was just your problem is now shared amongst your fellow motorists. As bad luck would have it there are days when no cars in a car pool are working. Very quickly, car pool sharing breaks down as the task of coordinating working cars between larger groups becomes intractable.

Then you remember the fun of using public transport. This makes you feel much better. You’ll be helping to save the planet. Unfortunately, when you get to the bus stop you find that the timetables had to be ditched. Even the bus companies started buying into the special fuel technology. They can no longer offer scheduled transport.

You finally make a reluctant decision. You kick yourself for trading your old car in. You realise you will have to buy yourself another car running on that pesky old-fashioned fuel. Not ideal as it will mean you running two cars, with two sets of fixed costs, servicing, tax and insurance. But at least you will be able to get where you need to go when you need to go.

At this point you come to a realisation. Your old fashioned car, which works all the time, but costs a bit more to run, is incredibly convenient. You can keep your job, get to hospital appointments on time, and never miss a holiday. Your special new one, just gets in the way being so large and blocking the drive.

You start to feel really foolish. What were you thinking? That special new car will have to go!

Just a shame you wasted so much money and time on it.