ILLUSTRATION: PAUL RYDING
Big news as I write this – Toyota is backing an electric future and winding back on hydrogen. It makes sense not to be pushing for something the world’s completely ignorant politicians have decided against, but it’s sad to see an innovator like Toyota cave in. No point grousing though, the deal is done. What did catch my eye in the news surrounding this was repeated use of a phrase that triggers me so badly I might need some more therapy: “zero emission vehicles”. No such object has ever been produced, and yet this phrase that has snuck up on us over the past decade has now taken root – it’s the Japanese knotweed of the car vocabulary. Just read those three words and tell me how any car company can, both legally and morally, make such a claim of anything it manufactures?