Anti-progress techno-righties are certain that electric cars are going to wreck our society rather than make it environmentally more sustainable, because of various factors including the huge power vehicles will draw when they are recharging. Never mind the huge environmental pollution they will help counter, and their greater efficiency compared to fossil-fueled vehicles.
But if those Luddites are so very concerned about power shortages, they should turn their gaze elsewhere, where insufficient power may be our salvation.
Of course, EVs are not the only new challenge to the world’s electric power supply. For instance, aside from the negative consequences on economies of rampant speculation in crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, digital money presents a similar environmental problem: It takes huge amounts of computing power worldwide to process digital currency transactions, so much that, already, total digital-coin electricity use surpasses total electricity consumption in some medium-sized, developed countries.
If that isn't bad enough, we now begin to face a similar challenge by the development of A.I. (artificial intelligence) computing. Merely training the current wave of A.I. systems has consumed huge amounts of electric power. See www.scientificamerican.com/…
Now, in theory, you could instruct a fully developed A.I. system to start developing new energy-conservation and alternative-energy systems to resolve this problem. But of course, it isn't just a technical issue, but one clouded by self-interested politics and fearful retro thinking in general.
In fiction, intelligent computers taking over or destroying the world are common villains.
Most famous, perhaps, is the "Skynet" defense system portrayed in the Terminator movie and TV series, which postulate that at some point the system's A.I. will become so smart it will realize that humanity is a threat to its existence, and therefore it will wipe us out.
Many computer scientists as well as science-fiction writers are indeed concerned about a "technological singularity," where our machines become so smart and complex that humans will not be able to understand or control them.
But, again, an often overlooked limiting factor: Machines need electricity to function, and power grids are physically vulnerable. So, for example, when fictional Skynet triggers a total, worldwide nuclear war to protect itself, it inevitably destroys much human-made infrastructure including power plants and transmission lines and robot factories necessary to sustain itself. The Matrix movies take a serious although fantastic look at this problem.
Of course, sight unseen in the Terminator stories, maybe Skynet is so smart it already has made allowances for this vulnerability. An episode of the great TV techno-thriller series "Person of Interest" shows how the A.I. in that tale takes steps to protect itself including ensuring it has all the power it needs before causing mass havoc.
In any event, any A.I. that considers taking civilization private will have plenty of research material to consult regarding its own possible future. Oops. Cyber-cat's out of the bag.