GREAT EXPECTATIONS

TONY SEBA, AN ECONOMIST AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY, SAYS THAT MANUFACTURE OF INTERNAL- COMBUSTIONPOWERED CARS, TRUCKS, AND BUSES WILL CEASE ENTIRELY WITHIN EIGHT YEARS…

The prediction of rapid change soon to come can create a buzz of expectation that outruns what is actually happening. I remember this well from the 1980s when many in our sport confidently expected a torrent of chassis innovation, originating in ideas from Formula 1, to wipe away an outworn and conformist past to bring us revolutionary motorcycles unlike anything seen before. These new machines would by implication be as revolutionary as the “rear-engine explosion” was in Formula 1; in 1959, Australian front-engined GP cars were gone—dismissed as “tractors.”