Is the electric car the savior of the classic car?
12/27/2022
It was Jay Leno, the internationally renowned US TV talk show host and classic car enthusiast, or rather car and motorcycle enthusiast, who made this statement: the electric car is the savior of the classic car. Leno has his own museum, owns a large number of different classic cars, has a successful YouTube channel and is omnipresent in other ways too. He never tires of praising the beauty and appeal of the classic car hobby.
But electric cars as the savior of classic cars? You rather get the feeling that electromobility is endangering the classic car, don't you?
Well, Leno's explanation was historically based. His statement was that the automobile once saved the horse. More than 100 years ago, cities were not particularly attractive in terms of transportation. Horses caused stench and health problems with their feces, and traffic jams existed despite average speeds of less than 20 km/h. The automobile actually made cities cleaner, even if people today like to see things differently. The "means of transportation" horse then became the "leisure vehicle" horse. No one had to ride into town on horseback or in a horse-drawn carriage any more; horses could be used for leisure rides and sporting events. And that is still the case today.
But let's take a look at the statistics, using Switzerland as an example: at the end of 2021, there were 80,069 horses in Switzerland. As of April 30, 2022, 110,376 cars over 30 years old were registered in Switzerland, 58.3% of which had veteran status (in Germany, the H license plate would be the equivalent). So we are talking about quite similar orders of magnitude when we compare the horse with the automobile. However, there would of course also be 80,526 motorcycles, 67,433 tractors or 21,215 agricultural motorized carts, all of which are also over 30 years old. But let's stay with cars.
So if the electric car really were to replace vehicles with combustion engines in the coming decades, our old cars and those that will become classic cars in the next few years would increasingly mutate into pure leisure vehicles, if they are not already so today. Because electric vehicles produce almost no local emissions, they would no longer be seen as harmful and, in the case of old cars, the joy that something so beautiful still exists would simply prevail. There would also no longer be any need to push the few classic cars out of city centers or restrict them in any other way. After all, you can ride a horse into town, but it's not allowed on the highway or certain roads. A brave new world for old cars thanks to the triumph of the electric car?
Well, we are not yet entirely convinced by this logic and this vision of the future, especially as the success of the electric vehicle is not yet assured ...
