Age of Auto Electric: Environment, Energy, and the Quest for the Sustainable Car—Matthew N. Eisler (Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2022, 365 pp.)

Abstract

When it comes to new technologies, I have never really been an “early adopter.” “Reluctant latecomer” would be closer to the mark, for my mantra has always been that “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” I still prefer LPs to MP3s, DVDs to streaming, and paper copies of journals, books, and magazines to their online equivalents. I have never tweeted, never used Facebook, and only recently (and with grave misgivings) acquired a smartphone. More to the point, my cars have manual keys, manual transmissions, and manual GPS (i.e., road atlases). Several decades into the digital age, I remain a comfortably analog person.