Stockholm Syndrome: the psychological response wherein a captive begins to identify closely with his or her captors, as well as with their agenda and demands.
The term, Stockholm Syndrome, stems from a 1973 attempted bank robbery in Sweden that led to a six-day siege during which the hostages developed a bond with the robbers and feared death by the police. The term was widely used in the defense of Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 and helped them to rob a bank 10 weeks later.
Might we also apply the term to technologies that, despite their initial threat, have provided benefits and over time, we have learned to accept them despite their faults?
Take the internal combustion (IC) engine, for example. At the beginning of the 20th century, the IC engine was a monster that scared our horses off the road, and if we weren’t careful when we tried to crank it up, might have broken our arms. Then it would sputter and belch and shake down the road, leaving a trail of black smoke. Still, it managed to captivate a few hostages and over time, the hostages multiplied. Many came to love the IC engine, like those who polish the engine of their hot rods and antiques that thunder down every Main Street parade. The rest accepted it, respected it, and learned to appreciate what it could provide. Like the captor, the engine could feed you and protect you. You came to depend on it.
The auto industry, with the IC engine at its heart, offers economic protection and puts bread on the table for so many of us. Millions, like autoworkers, directly depend on it, and tens of millions, when one considers supporting industries such as rubber, glass, plastics, steel and oil, indirectly depend on it .
The IC engine-based economy is big enough to be worth fighting for.
And so, we turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the IC engine’s faults. It still pollutes, but you can’t see it. It still makes noise, but listen to how well we have muffled it. So well behaved we believe we have made them, as we would pet the once vicious guard dog that now lies at our feet. Besides, look at all the jobs it creates.
But I Need the Eggs
In “Annie Hall,” Alvy Singer, played by Woody Allen, tells his psychiatrist a joke:
Patient: My brother’s crazy! He thinks he’s a chicken.
Doctor: Why don’t you turn him in?
Patient: I would, but I need the eggs.
“I guess that’s how I feel about relationships,” says Singer. “They’re totally crazy, irrational, and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs.”
One egg in this story is the noise an IC engine makes. We need it for safety. So argue Harley Davidson riders. You will hear a Harley from blocks away. You will get out of the way. By comparison, a Tesla is a silent death.
The electric car has an electric motor whine instead of an IC engine roar. It scares or impresses no one. In economy of design, no transmission and fewer moving parts should be considered advantages, but those who make transmissions, radiators, mufflers... they need the eggs.
About a quarter of the jobs on assembly lines would be lost if President Biden has his way and two-thirds of all cars sold in the U.S. are electric, says one source.
More jobs will be lost in the Southern states, with their economies based on oil and gas. Even more would be lost in the already poor coal mining areas.
Coal may be the most extreme example of Stockholm Syndrome in any industry. Once the mining companies were seen as villains and the miners as indentured servants. Until miners became convinced that the mining companies were their friends (didn't they put a roof over their heads and food on their tables?) and the government was the threat (they wanted to take their jobs away).
Shake, Rattle and Rolls
Even noise, an aspect of IC engines so unwanted that an engineering discipline (NVH, noise, vibration and harshness) has been created to combat it, has its fans. One of them, in a black Challenger apparently with no mufflers, roars past my office as I write this. What hot rodders and monster truckers have learned to appreciate, engineers have been determined to eradicate.
In The Perfectionists, Simon Winchester tells of the pride with which Henry Royce built the early Rolls-Royce cars. The latest Ghost is said to be so “spookily quiet” that engineers were forced to add a “whisper of noise.”
The introduction of Lexus, Toyota’s luxury brand, featured a pyramid of glasses filled with champagne—without a trace of vibration or a drop being spilled—on the hood of an LS 400 running at 145 mph on a dynamometer. Kia and Hyundai, recognizing American’s need for the big engine "feel," thought of adding vibration to the seats of their vehicles.
There’s a story of an executive of a well-known motorcycle company who started the engine of a prototype of the company’s latest design, but since the vehicle had been designed to run quietly and smoothly—without the company’s characteristic roar—he kept trying to start it. That quiet prototype was quietly scrapped.
The Mercedes E-Class was Motor Trend’s Car of the Year in 2021. The E-Class sedan goes through its gears so smoothly you don’t notice the shifts. Engine noises don’t enter the passenger cabin -- you can hear passengers whispering in the back seat. Over its 130 years, Mercedes has been able to turn a fire-breathing roaring dragon into a purring pussy cat. It only took them 7 years to create an electric car that surpassed the E-Class on every level, more power with less noise, with its first all-electric car, the 2021 EQS.
Complexity = Jobs
An IC-powered car has many more parts than an electric vehicle (EV). It takes longer to put an IC-powered car together and requires more parts and more assembly workers. There are a lot of Tier 1 automotive vendors that won’t have jobs if the roads fill with EVs: those who make mufflers, transmissions, alternators, gas tanks, fuel injection systems and radiators, for example. An automatic transmission, for example, is 800 parts all by itself. An EV needs no such device and is able to muster top torque at will, at all RPMs. Fewer parts also mean fewer parts that can go wrong or wear out. That’s fewer mechanics, fewer oil changing stations, and fewer car parts stores.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to have two-thirds of new U.S. car sales be EVs by 2032 is, of course, a threat to workers who will suffer dislocations. Those are workers who must be considered threats to elected officials who backed EV-friendly legislation.
Technology vs Social Adaptability
So, the slam dunk that EVs ought to be judged on their technological merit encounters the relatively slower pace of social change.