Free will is a myth, the truth is big car

In 2021, Algeria became the last country to stop using a notorious petrol additive called tetraethyl lead (TEL). Countries where cars were mandatorily sold with catalytic converters had started banning it decades earlier. India did in 1999. Let the record show that leaded petrol was eliminated to save car exhausts, not people, although it was known to be a problematic chemical from the day it was poured into a sputtering engine in a GM lab in 1921.

In his book Saving Ourselves from Big Car , David Obst looks at the many ways ‘Big Car’ – which he describes as not only the big carmakers but also “oil, insurance, media, tyre, and concrete industries” working in concert – has impacted human life, with special emphasis on the additive.

TEL was known to cause hallucinations in workers who made it, and later research has linked it to the pre-1990s crime rate spiral in US, the country with the maximum cars clocking the maximum miles. Seemingly, exposure to TEL lowered IQ in children, and their ability to delay gratification, which increased the likelihood of committing theft, rape, murder, etc. How was Big Car complicit in this? They knew some of TEL’s worst health impacts, but since it prevented engine knocking and backfiring, and made engines “purr”, they told lies to keep selling it.

It was an age when doctors sold their soul to Big Tobacco for a few dollars. Thomas Midgley Jr and Robert Kehoe were scientists in this mould. Midgley demonstrated the safety of TEL by rubbing it on his hands (he was violently sick afterwards) while Kehoe testified for $100,000 – about $1.8mn today – that the chemical was as safe as water.

Big Car has only grown more powerful with time, Obst says. “The combined wealth of this collaboration is more significant than all sovereign nations, except US and China.” That’s why no amount of environmental reporting stops the construction of four-lane highways in the hills. There’s mountains of research showing that making roads and parking lots does not solve the urban congestion problem, yet new roads and flyovers keep getting sanctioned all the time.

You get a better idea of Big Car’s power from its financial clout. It employs over 3mn Americans to manufacture, distribute and service cars. Obst says the US car industry uses 20% of steel and 60% of rubber in the country. Car insurance alone is worth $300bn. America’s entire public transport expenditure comes to only $80bn whereas trillions are spent on maintaining the country’s 223mn cars. Things aren’t too different in other large car producing countries.

And TEL isn’t the only stain on Big Car’s reputation. It resisted the installation of seat belts “because it would lower profit margins”. SUVs are extremely dangerous for pedestrians, but Big Car wants to sell more of them. It also keeps shaping our lives in unforeseen ways. Cars created suburban living, and made garages integral to houses. They popularised shopping malls and fast food – “people wanted to get back on the road quickly,” Obst explains. They’ve even standardised dialect – Americans listening to car radios for hours daily started sounding more and more like “network English”. This process has been on for 125 years already, and with the coming of electric and autonomous cars, we’re headed into uncharted territory.