The future of motoring is electrification as they keep telling us. Divorcing fossil fuels and driving off into the sunset with a younger, hotter model by the name of Electricity is inevitable. It’s a snowball that has been gathering pace and growing in size for many years now and there will be no stopping it’s progress. Change and progress are inevitable after all and with environmental and health-related concerns in the driving seat(s), it is going to happen.

But if you are like me and a petrolhead in love with cars and the art of driving, then this change isn’t just disheartening; it’s distressing. A future of humming about in washing machines with automatic transmissions and self-driving systems is an awful one in my opinion. If you’re the type of person who views a car as an A-B appliance in the same category as your dishwasher or fridge then you won’t see the big deal. If you’re the kind of person who wants cars gone right now in order to save the planet then you may be tutting at my ignorant, selfish viewpoint in disgust. However, I’m not here to please either of you or try to make you see my viewpoint.

I am going to miss the combustion engine and my unwavering admiration for how it works. I am going to miss the sheer pleasure of hooning around in the Sunday afternoon sunshine with bends to master and straights to abuse. I’m going to miss the satisfaction of working a manual gearbox and getting those shifts spot-on. But I think we will have these pleasures for some time to come yet. Here in the UK for example, the infrastructure and capacity to generate enough electricity to charge all of these cars is woefully lacking so I cannot see a complete shift to electric in the timeframe that the government and eco warriors are pushing for. We can’t even maintain the road surfaces due to budget cuts for fuck’s sake. The idea of charging cables snaking across the pavement on streets of terraced houses without off-road parking is also ludicrous.

Then there is the question of what will happen to the big fuel companies and how the global economy will be impacted by their falling profts. Sure, they can charge us for electricity but there won’t be the same profit available to them as with dino-juice unless they try to get away with making electricity as expensive as petrol currently is. If that happens then we will charge at home as much as possible…until smart electric meters start charging us a higher rate to charge cars despite that electricity being the same energy which powers your kettle and costs you far less to do so.

There’s a lot to think about and a lot of unaddressed issues in a field that is over-reaching and pushing for too much, too quickly. Climate change experts say that we need to hit this as hard as possible but I think it’s more of a case of us being behind in pursuing green technology. After all, we could have had hydrogen cars on the road a long time ago if not for the fuel barons paying to make inventions disappear.

But none of this concerns me as much as the fact that when all of this does happen, we will lose the very soul of motoring and those special elements that make cars more than just transport for some of us. The engine and exhaust sounds that differentiate different cars for example. I’m talking about…

• The raw, metallic growl of an BMW E46 M3
• The burbling, two fingers to sublety that is the boxer engine in a Subaru Impreza
• The building shriek of Honda’s naturally-aspirated V-TEC equipped engines as the revs head to silly 9k redlines
• The angry, pissed-off snarly, crackly-bangy Mercedes C63 AMG
• Bulging, steroidal American muscle power and the roar of an honest V8
• The scream of a highly-strung V10 in the back of fighter jet-like supercar exotica

So, as I have already said, change is inevitable but in this case, I feel that it’s change well worth resisting for as long as possible. I’m talking the kind of iron wall resistance that embodies the essence of a Spartan warrior…or Robert Mugabe (too soon?). I get the reasons for the change and I genuinely can’t put together a credible counter-case but even so, I am reserving my right to burn fuel and enjoy REAL cars, not dishwater-dull washing machines on wheels.

I even find myself appreciating dodgy modified rides and the underground street racing scene these days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m firmly against the roadmen and their dangerous driving that can kill others but this shady corner of motoring is at least enjoying real cars and car culture.

The next generation of motoring however will have no soul so let’s make sure we enjoy what we have to the max before the do-gooders take away our hobby.