Car

Love cars? Or hate cars? Our attitude to the cars is a social schizophrenia that affects an ever-expanding population as car ownership spreads globally. Yet the problems associated with car use become increasingly clear and present. Our love-hate relationship with the car has always been intimately connected with car design, and in this book Gregory Votolato examines this complex and persistent bond. If today many of us feel that our attachment to cars is a vice, how then does this manifest itself in the design of the cars we buy and use? And if cars per se are bad, why promote “environmentally friendly” hybrid cars?

Over the past century the internal combustion engine, the lightweight steam engine and the electric motor proved their value to industry and commerce powering tractors, pickup trucks and delivery vans, while supporting civic order and public service in police vehicles and ambulances. Yet it was the private passenger car that became the most glamorous product of the industrial age, serving psychological, social, and economic functions well beyond its utility as a means of transportation.

In Car, Votolato traces the lifecycle of the automobile from the drawing board to the scrapyard, it evaluates the environmental impact of the world’s current one billion cars and rising. Its explorations offer fascinating insights into the ways our attachments to cars may develop in light of environmental pressures, emerging technologies, and changing lifestyles.