As you were

Contra to the complaint that evo is apparently stuck in some prehistoric era because of its devotion to the spirit, sound and engagement of ICES, it’s precisely the unapologetic continuation of this passion that reminds me of the reason why I, no doubt like many readers, buy it every month.

evo offers consolation at a time when EV evangelism has reached fever pitch across most of today’s auto mags. The zeal with which editors and writers elsewhere repeat the fact that our future is imminently electric has not only become sanctimonious (guilting all of us supposedly retrograde petrolheads into making ‘the

change’), it is also presumptuous: after all, a ‘future’ where we have a nationwide infrastructure and purchase-price point that would enable the majority of the population to convert irreversibly to EVS could still be a couple of decades away, despite government propaganda.

What’s more, contra the impression many mags give of this sea-change being just round the corner, the ‘ban’ (as some commentators love to call it, in their pious sense of compliance, shrouded in the pretence of ecorighteousness), is still eight years away – yep, time enough for two full PCP cycles.

There are already plenty of weekly mags out there that are replete with conjectures about what we’ll supposedly be driving – or compelled to drive – in years to come, even though (if I may indulge a speculation of my own) by the time we reach 2030, hydrogen fuels will no doubt be the solution of choice and the full environmental impact of producing and disposing of the innards of EVS will be revealed. In the meantime, please keep doing what you do best, evo, and celebrate with unashamed enthusiasm the character and charisma of ICES, which will continue to reward us for far longer than electrification missionaries currently assume.

Prof. David James, Oxford