America is ahead of Australia on EVs (and why it’s a worry!)

America is such a tangled ball of idiots and geniuses, a producer of such unlikely events, outrageous bad actors and absurd plot twists that it sometimes feels more like a Hollywood movie than a country. A movie that would look too stupid and unbelievable as a script to even get made.

Yet, much like some bad films, you can’t look away. And, despite being populated by people so stupid they can argue that face masks are a bad idea during a pandemic, and that they probably take some twisted pride in having the worst coronavirus figures on Earth, they always seem to be just a little cooler, and even sometimes more progressive, than us.

I’m vastly old enough to remember when we had only two television stations, and yet we heard stories of Americans having dozens, probably hundreds, on “cable” TV (ours was still coming through the air, to aerials the size of trees).

Years later I remember visiting for the first time and being in awe of their billboards advertising no-fault lawyers, fake teeth and cheese in a can.

Because there are 70 million people in that country who voted for Donald Trump – who can’t decide on his profession; liar or fool, so has settled on both – it hurts when they are ahead of our country on anything at all.

The progressive attitude to legalising cannabis for personal uses across the country – when New Zealand just voted against the same  – is one thing, but now that President Joe Biden is using the words “climate change” without the word “hoax”, they’re also racing ahead of us when it comes to taking EVs seriously. And I take this personally, almost as much as Will Ferrell clearly did when he was told about Norway kicking America’s ass when it comes to EVs.

So much so he agreed to star in a hilarious Super Bowl ad about it.

What struck me most about the commercial is that it makes EVs seem entirely mainstream and mass market.

You could argue that Super Bowl ads are about as mass market as it gets, and the message GM wanted to take to all those eyeballs watching was – America needs to take EVs more seriously, the way Norway does, and we are going to help you by making lots of them and then producing clever ads to make you interested in them.

And then there was another Super Bowl ad for the Cadillac Lyriq, another EV, featuring the very lovely Winona Ryder, whose face seems to have been… adjusted in some kind of vacuum-cleaner accident, and Edward Scissorhands.

This time the focus was on advanced tech and autonomy, but it’s clear to see that, in America at least, the two are being tied together in their messaging. EVs are the future, EVs are cool, EVs will drive themselves and look amazing – which the Lyriq does. These ads make it feel like the EV revolution is already happening, and the big guns are coming for Tesla.

This could not be much further removed from the car advertisements here, which tend to feature Scott Morrison laughing about how electric vehicles will ruin the Aussie weekend. 

Well, that might be an exaggeration, but I certainly haven’t seen many for full electric cars.

America is beating us again, not by as much as Norway, but far more publicly on the global stage.

At least we can laugh about it.