Watching the end of internal combustion engines in Phoenix, Arizona


It's June of 2021, and I'm watching the end of internal combustion engines in Phoenix, Arizona. It's a change from one type of technology to another. Internal combustion is going away to be replaced by electric motors.

Now calm down there if you think it's gonna happen suddenly, that's not how these things work. There will be a LOT of overlap, and it will be many years before internal combustion engines become something that just the old-timers remember, or becomes a bit of historical trivia. This kind of thing has happened before, and it's sure to happen again. That's how history works, things change.

As a history adventurer, my mind goes to the transition from the use of horses to the use of automobiles. And while looking back it seems to have happened in the blink of an eye, it really didn't. It wasn't as if everyone just woke up one day and said, "No more horses now! Just cars!"

As an old marketing guy, I know that when most people go to the hardware store to buy a drill, they're not really interested in drills, they're interested in making holes in walls. And it's true of any technology that people use. Yes, of course there are people who are fascinated with drills, or cell phones, or engines, but most people just want what these things do. And cars move people around, and carry stuff.

I'll admit that I'm one of those people who has always had a fascination with internal combustion engines. If you know the difference between a Cleveland and a Windsor 351, you know what I mean. If not, then you're in the vast majority of people who would have been satisfied with the horsepower ratings that Rolls Royce originally published: "Adequate".

Future generations will be puzzled about the 20th and early 21st Century obsession with internal combustion engines, with the smell, and the noise. And maybe people missed the sound of horses along Washington Avenue, or the smell, once they were gone. Old-timers will understand, and the young ones will just be puzzled.
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