There is a fundamental inconsistency between what consumers expect from transportation and what today’s electric vehicle market actually delivers.
Most people want more comfort and less planning. They don’t want to drive. They don’t want to think about annual maintenance, tire pressure, or oil changes. They want to get in, go, and arrive — without any mental overhead.
Enter the electric vehicle, marketed as the future. But instead of freedom, it demands more: plan your route around charging stations, drive conservatively to preserve range, check tire pressure more frequently, monitor battery health, worry about winter degradation. A vehicle that promises simplicity ironically requires more attention than the noisy, polluting machine it replaces.
Meanwhile, most drivers of internal combustion engine cars couldn’t tell you what transmission their car uses, what features their engine has, or why their car needs annual maintenance in the first place. They just drive. The car works, or they take it to a mechanic. This has been the status quo for decades.
So what changed?
I have used the Seiko Astron analogy before to explain the disruption electric vehicles caused in the automotive industry — Tesla being the Seiko, traditional manufacturers being the Swiss. That was about market dynamics.
Here I want to talk about something different: the relationship between a user and a tool. And for that, CASIO digital watches are a much better example.
What CASIO Got Right
Think about a CASIO digital watch. It has no hands, no gears, no winding crown. It shows the time in plain numbers. It beeps when you set an alarm. The battery lasts years. When it dies, you replace the whole watch — it costs less than a meal out. It is the purest example of an appliance: it does one thing, perfectly, without asking anything from you.
If you just want to know the time, you buy a CASIO. You don’t think about how it works. You don’t maintain it. You might still love it — CASIO is a lovely brand and some people form real attachments to their watches — but it’s a different kind of attachment. It works, or you replace the battery, or you throw it away and buy another one.
But if you like watches — if you appreciate mechanical engineering, craftsmanship, the sweep of a balance wheel — you buy a mechanical wristwatch. You maintain it. You learn how it works. You enjoy it.
Now apply this to cars. Most people want a CASIO — a transportation appliance that works without thinking. They don’t want to know about transmissions, engine features, or why annual maintenance matters. They just want to get in, go, and arrive.
Electric vehicles should be the CASIO of transportation. Instead, they’re being built like mechanical watches with a battery: they still ask you to plan routes, monitor range, care about battery health. They changed the engine but kept the relationship with the driver exactly the same.
The Real Transition
The transition to electric vehicles is far from complete, and it won’t be complete until we stop thinking of electric vehicles as “cars” and start thinking of them as nodes in a mobility ecosystem.
Electric vehicles should not merely replace the traditional automotive ecosystem. They need to be integrated into a vast network that encompasses everything from municipal urbanization policies and public transport to urban entertainment venues and highway rest stops. The new mobility vision must be built with this in mind.
What does this look like?
Charging infrastructure that you never think about. You park, it charges. Not at a special station, not with a separate app, not with a timer — just wherever you stop. Like your phone on your nightstand.
Vehicles that handle the planning. The car knows your schedule, your calendar, your preferred routes. It optimizes charging stops without you ever opening a map. You don’t plan; you just get in and go.
A seamless intermodal system. Your electric vehicle is one option among many. The same trip might combine walking, e-scooter, autonomous EV, and train — all coordinated through a single interface, paid with a single account.
Only then will electric vehicle users be free from the need to plan ahead or worry about charging and range. They will simply inhabit a four-wheeled entertainment capsule — a comfortable, connected space that happens to move them from place to place — without even needing to know how the vehicle actually works.
The Two Futures
And this is where it gets interesting. There isn’t one future for personal transportation. There are two, and they coexist:
Mobility as an appliance. Most people will consume transportation the way they consume electricity or internet access. It’s a utility. They don’t care how it works. They care that it works. The vehicle is a comfortable, connected space — a pod that moves while they scroll, sleep, or watch.
Driving as a hobby. Meanwhile, true car enthusiasts will continue to do what they’ve always done: seek out a Mazda MX-5 with a manual transmission and a naturally aspirated engine. They will maintain it themselves, understand every component, and enjoy the act of driving as an end in itself. Just as mechanical watch enthusiasts still buy, maintain, and treasure their timepieces.
The mobility appliance needs to be invisible. The enthusiast’s car needs to be visceral. And right now, the electric vehicle market is delivering neither.