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Why Do People Resist New Technology Like Electric Vehicles?
David Shultz
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Last week California air regulators voted to ban all new internal combustion car sales starting in 2035. The news was met with a predictable mix of responses: Some lauded the decision as forward-thinking and environmentally responsible; others saw it as government overreach–an attack on consumer freedom and the free market.
Whether the arguments against EVs are in good faith or not (they’re often not), the fact remains that this burgeoning technology has been met with fierce resistance since Teslas started hitting the road back in 2008. It’s easy to find examples of people keying EVs, rolling coal to spite them or blocking chargers with gas-powered cars.
A part of human nature is naturally resistant to change and to the unknown. It has served us well evolutionarily over the past 200,000 years. Tradition keeps us safe when it comes to eating the right wild berries or choosing a route to the next town. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there were people in the Roman Empire spreading myths about how using indoor plumbing makes your sword hand weak, or that riding in a chariot would make your uterus fall out. Even without political tribalism and pressure from the fossil fuel industry, new tech can be divisive.
Rosabeth M. Kanter, a professor of business at Harvard Business School, who studies these ideas, says the number one reason people resist change is that they fear a loss of control over their lives. This may explain why the ban on new gas cars in California has faced some backlash.
“For people who are feeling like life is slipping out of their control–that sinister forces are pushing them around–they're likely to not want to be forced into making a change,” says Kanter. Whether or not the state could have accomplished the same goal without a mandate is debatable, but due to the California Air Resources Board’s successful history of driving national policy with ambitious state-level laws, it’s not surprising they chose to take that risk.
However, Kanter also notes that plenty of new tech innovations have been welcomed with open arms. Take the smartphone, for instance. Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in 2007. By 2017, 77% of Americans owned a smartphone. Cars, of course, were always going to be slower transition—after all, the lifecycle of a car is at least three or four times as long as that of a smartphone. But why has there been so much cultural resistance to the growing EV market share?
The biggest and most obvious answer is cost. Smartphones aren’t cheap, but there’s a big difference between $700 and $70,000. The current batch of EVs on the road are simply too expensive for the average person to afford. Knowing that demand would outstrip initial manufacturing capacity, EV makers have chosen to offer luxury models first in order to make as much money as possible while ramping up production. And while legacy OEMs are beginning to enter the scene and change this dynamic, we’re still early in this story and costs are still extremely high.
Kanter says that to get consumers to adopt new tech, the transition has to be smooth. It has to be easy. Remember taking your flip phone to a Verizon or AT&T and trading it in for a smartphone? These companies made it simple and offered excellent financing plans–just a few extra dollars added to your bill every month. And while there are about a thousand different EV rebates and incentives on offer (see Wednesday’s newsletter) finding and understanding how to apply these deals is a whole lot harder than trading in a Motorola Razr for an iPhone.
Regarding smooth transitions: Charging infrastructure remains another huge impediment. While EV range anxiety is perceived to be much more of an issue than it actually is, the fact remains that America’s charging infrastructure is inadequate–especially rural areas in the middle of the country. If California wants to get everyone in an EV as quickly as possible, the state will need to make EV charging as seamless as gassing up.
Another thing Kanter says made the transition to smartphones different from EVs and other technology. New phones offered immediate and obvious benefits. Maps and internet access alone would’ve sold the devices. They also connected customers to networks that were pretty much inaccessible without the device. Nobody wants to miss out on the group chat drama. “The minute they see things that are benefits for themselves, you don't have to argue with them anymore,” says Kanter. “The benefits are right there in front of them.”
The benefits of electric vehicles, on the other hand, are more subtle or even existential. Calculating the cost of recharging the vehicle or the cost per mile of driving almost requires some familiarity with high-school physics. While the math isn’t necessarily complex or difficult, it’s new and foreign enough to present a barrier. Yes, it’s usually cheaper per mile to drive an EV than to fill up with gas, but to figure that out you have to know what a kilowatt hour is and how many your car consumes per mile of travel and how much electricity costs per kilowatt hour. Climate benefits only really apply at a society- and perhaps planetary level.
Of course you have this entire debate playing out against a climate in which batteries and gasoline have somehow become political footballs. If “opposing any policy from the other side” remains de rigueur in Washington, EV adoption will be slowed by politics…until the transition is truly seamless and the benefits are impossible to ignore.
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David Shultz
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
AirMap Will Help The FAA Design Its New Drone Tracking System
04:43 PM | May 06, 2020
Santa Monica-based drone operations company AirMap is among eight companies selected to help the Federal Aviation Administration establish technical requirements for Remote ID, a protocol that drones will be required to follow for broadcasting identification and location data while in flight.
The other companies include Airbus, Amazon, T-Mobile, Intel, OneSky, Skyward and Alphabet's drone subsidiary, Wing.
"The FAA will be able to advance the safe integration of drones into our nation's airspace from these technology companies' knowledge and expertise on remote identification," Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said today in a news release.
Today's announcement comes months after the FAA put out a set of draft regulations and a request for information relating to Remote ID.
Remote ID would require drone manufacturers to make their products capable of sending out ID codes and location data during operation in national airspace. The rules would apply to all drones heavier than 8.8 ounces, and manufacturers would have to comply two years after the regulations take effect. Drone operators would have three years to phase out non-complying devices.
Drones without the Remote ID system could be flown only within special FAA-designated zones — usually the same sorts of places where hobbyists fly model airplanes.
Remote ID system proposed for drones in U.S. airspacewww.youtube.com
The eight companies named today will advise the FAA on the technical standards and radio frequencies that would support the Remote ID system. Those specifications will be announced when the FAA publishes its final rule on Remote ID. Then the FAA would begin accepting applications for entities to become Remote ID suppliers.
Assuming the process develops as the FAA envisions, Remote ID would become a fact of life for drone operation — and for enforcement of the rules governing drone operation. Nearly 1.5 million drones and 160,000 remote pilots are now registered with the FAA, and analysts say Remote ID could turn into a market generating $1.5 billion a year by 2029.
Seattle-based Amazon and Wing are already well-known for their work on drones designed for package delivery. Airbus has its own delivery-drone program known as Skyways. Intel, meanwhile, has been building drones optimized for remote monitoring. Several FAA-approved pilot projects are testing Intel's drones as well as Intel's Bluetooth-enabled identification system, known as Open Drone ID.
AirMap, OneSky (a business unit of Analytical Graphics Inc.) and Skyward (a Verizon subsidiary) are working on traffic management systems that are optimized to keep track of drone operations.
T-Mobile has been providing the connectivity for at least three pilot projects involving drones, and is looking to expand its involvement in the drone industry with the rise of 5G networks.
Not everyone is happy with the FAA's proposed plan for Remote ID: DJI, one of the world's largest drone manufacturers, sounded off about its objections in a January blog posting.
"DJI wants governments to require Remote ID for drones, but the FAA has proposed a complex, expensive and intrusive system that would make it harder to use drones in America, and that jeopardizes the success of the Remote ID initiative," said Brendan Schulman, DJI's vice president of policy and legal affairs. "Instead, we support a simpler, easier, and free version of Remote ID that doesn't need a cellular connection or a service subscription."
Will the FAA's new technology partners come up with a different plan, or stick with the system as proposed? Stay tuned.
This story first appeared on GeekWire.
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Alan Boyle, GeekWire
GeekWire contributing editor Alan Boyle is an award-winning science writer and veteran space reporter. Formerly of NBCNews.com, he is the author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference." Follow him via CosmicLog.com, on Twitter @b0yle, and on Facebook and MeWe.
Tinder, Starlink, and Apple’s New Studio: This Week in LA
10:27 AM | July 04, 2025
🔦 Spotlight
Happy Independence Day, Los Angeles! 🇺🇸
While you're celebrating freedom, here are some electrifying updates lighting up LA’s tech, satellite, and music scenes:
🔥 Tinder mandates Face Recognition in California
Image Source: Tinder
Tinder is now requiring all new users in California to complete a biometric face check, a brief video selfie processed via FaceTec, to verify profiles are genuine. The video is deleted post-verification, though an encrypted face map remains while the account is active. This West Hollywood based move could redefine trust, safety, and privacy in mainstream consumer apps.
🌐 Starlink clears hurdle to launch in India
Elon Musk’s SpaceX backed Starlink has cleared most regulatory and licensing hurdles with India’s Department of Telecommunications, marking a key step toward launching satellite broadband in one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Final approvals from the national space regulator are pending, and services, expected to deliver high speed connectivity to underserved regions, could launch in the coming months. This is a major milestone for Starlink’s global expansion.
🎧 Apple Music opens Culver City creative hub
Image Source: Apple
Apple Music is celebrating its anniversary by launching a brand new 15,000 square foot, three story studio in Culver City. The facility, featuring a 4,000 square foot soundstage, spatial audio suites, podcast booths, and more, is designed by Eric Owen Moss and slated to open mid August. It solidifies LA’s reputation as a creative powerhouse and reaffirms Apple’s commitment to investing in and nurturing our city's cultural ecosystem.
From dating apps to deep space to sound stages, LA isn’t just watching the future unfold, we’re building it.
Here’s to independence, imagination, and everything this city dares to launch next. Happy Fourth, Los Angeles.
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- Castelion has raised a $350M Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside Altimeter Capital to scale its hypersonic missile production capabilities. The El Segundo-based defense startup plans to use the funds to expand manufacturing, accelerate testing through its SpaceX-inspired rapid development model, and position itself as a cost-effective supplier of hypersonic weapons to the U.S. military and its allies. - learn more
- Earth Sama, a Calabasas, California–based climate-tech platform that helps rural farming and Indigenous communities generate and manage carbon credits, secured investment from Omtse Ventures. The funding will support the rollout of Earth Sama’s blockchain-powered field app, climate-creator platform, and smart-contract tools to scale community-led carbon credit projects globally under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 framework. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- Plassa Capital participated in Metafide’s $3.275M funding round. Miami based Metafide, the creator of SURGE, a gamified trading platform that combines AI neural networks and human insight, will use the funds to scale and launch SURGE into the market. - learn more
- BOLD Capital Partners participated as a founding investor in Syntis Bio’s $33M Series A round, with an additional $5M in NIH grants. The Boston-based biotech is developing oral therapies for obesity and rare diseases, and the funding will help advance its SYNT platform, moving its lead obesity treatment, SYNT-101, into Phase 1 trials and supporting development of SYNT-202 for homocystinuria. - learn more
- BAM Ventures participated in Cred’s $15M seed round for its predictive intelligence startup. San Francisco based Cred uses AI to unify company data with real time market signals and deliver actionable insights for sales and operations. The funding, led by defy.vc, will be used to scale Cred’s platform, expand its customer base, and grow team and product capabilities. - learn more
- BOLD Capital Partners participated in Gallant’s $18M Series B round to advance its ready-to-use stem cell therapies for pets. The funding, led by Digitalis Ventures with additional support from NovaQuest Capital, will help Gallant bring its off-the-shelf regenerative treatments to market. - learn more
- Rebel Fund joined the seed round for Rocketable, contributing to the $6.5M raised to build a portfolio of fully automated SaaS companies. San Francisco-based Rocketable, backed by True Ventures and others, uses AI agents to operate acquired software products, and Rebel’s support will help scale both the platform and acquisitions. - learn more
LA Exits
- Leasepath, a cloud-first provider of equipment lease and loan management software, has been acquired by Solifi to enhance its mid-market offerings. The deal allows Solifi to expand Leasepath’s Microsoft Dynamics-based platform into new global markets while keeping Leasepath’s team and leadership in place. - learn more
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