Introduction
It is one of the strangest contradictions of our time. Humanity sits atop a tectonically unstable planet, staring down the barrel of nuclear arsenals, supervolcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and climate instability. And yet, instead of designing technology for resilience — the kind of machines that might keep civilisation functioning through crisis — we’ve doubled down on fragile, convenience-first systems that crack under strain.
The automobile is perhaps the starkest symbol of this misalignment. The future being marketed to us is one of sleek electric vehicles (EVs), packed with sensors, computers, and batteries dependent on fragile supply chains. But when we step back and look at history, at disaster, at survival itself, what do we see? We see the humble Toyota Corolla, the diesel Hilux, the old Nissan Patrol — machines designed with rugged simplicity, capable of limping along in almost any condition.
Why then, in a world that knows instability is inevitable, do we keep pushing forward with technology that sacrifices durability for profit and short-term consumer appeal?
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The Fragility of EV Dreams
Electric vehicles are often presented as the inevitable future of transport. And in controlled conditions — wealthy cities, reliable power grids, abundant rare earths — they make sense. But the reality is that current EV technology is deeply fragile when measured against the yardstick of survival.
Battery technology, though advancing incrementally, is primitive in civilisational terms. Lithium-ion packs degrade over 8 to 15 years depending on climate and usage. Their energy density remains low compared to liquid fuels. They are vulnerable to extreme temperatures, require clean infrastructure for charging, and depend on mining chains that are themselves geopolitical choke points.
In other words, EVs are designed for stability, not for instability. They are consumer products, not survival tools. In the apocalypse scenario, their battery packs will be stripped for solar banks, while the vehicles themselves rust into obsolescence. Their usefulness ends where fragility begins.
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The Enduring Strength of ICE
Contrast this with the internal combustion engine (ICE). Maligned as dirty and outdated, it nonetheless remains the most robust technology humans have put on wheels. A 30-year-old Corolla or LandCruiser can still start every morning with minimal upkeep. Diesel engines in particular are famously adaptable: they can run on biodiesel, vegetable oil, even improvised fuels. They store energy in a form far more stable than lithium cells.
This explains why militaries, disaster relief organisations, and farmers still rely overwhelmingly on diesel vehicles. In war zones and catastrophe zones, what survives is what can be repaired with a hammer, not what requires a computer diagnostic tool.
When society collapses — or even when a nation faces prolonged energy shortages — the prestige cars and modern electric fleets will fall silent. Survivors will keep patching together Corollas, Camrys, Hiluxes, Patrols, and LandCruisers. These are the machines built before the industry pivoted towards complexity and profit cycles.
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Profit vs Resilience
This brings us to the heart of the contradiction: technology development in capitalist economies does not optimise for survivability. It optimises for profitability.
Durability, modularity, and repairability are actively suppressed. Planned obsolescence drives turnover. Luxury features — sensors, infotainment systems, electronic locks, and hundreds of chips — generate margins but cripple resilience.
The market produces what sells, not what sustains. Governments, too, lean into this logic. Subsidies push EV adoption not because they are robust, but because they look like progress, align with climate messaging, and open new profit horizons for manufacturers and investors.
But in doing so, civilisation has engineered fragility into its veins. The profit-driven pursuit of “convenient” technology locks us into machines that crumble the moment infrastructure is disrupted.
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Natural Risks, Ignored
The irony is that humanity does not live in a stable world. The Earth itself is restless. Supervolcanoes like Yellowstone or Toba could plunge the planet into decades of ash winter. Tsunamis born of seismic upheaval could wipe coastlines clean. Earthquakes could cripple power grids for months. Add to that the ever-present risk of nuclear confrontation, geopolitical sabotage, and climate volatility.
And yet our technologies are designed as though none of this is real. The system operates on a dangerous assumption: that tomorrow will always look like today, that grids will remain powered, that supply chains will remain intact.
This is not technological optimism. It is technological hubris.
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The Hybrid Path We Ignore
There is, of course, a middle way — a path almost invisible in mainstream discourse. Imagine a transport ecosystem where:
Small EVs handle short-range city driving. Lightweight, simple, charged locally. Perfect for shopping, commuting, urban loops.
Hybrid vehicles exist not for prestige, but for necessity. A commuter might run on electricity 80% of the time but switch to liquid fuel for emergencies or longer trips.
Diesel long-haulers remain the backbone of long-distance travel, agriculture, logistics, and rural survival — but redesigned to be fuel-flexible, modular, and vastly more efficient.
This layered approach would give society resilience. It would balance energy needs across multiple systems rather than throwing all our chips on one fragile bet. But such a system is not profitable in the same way. It does not drive endless cycles of consumption. It does not excite investors. And so it remains largely absent from the mainstream.
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The Survivor’s Eye
Picture the wasteland. In a post-collapse landscape — whether sparked by war, disaster, or systemic breakdown — what survives is what can be kept alive without a factory behind it. A convoy of patched-up Corollas and Hiluxes rumbles down a dusty road, scavenging fuel, scavenging parts, endlessly repaired. On the roadside lie the carcasses of BMWs, Teslas, and Audis, stripped for metals, batteries, and glass.
It is not a science-fiction fantasy. It is a simple extrapolation of design philosophy. Machines designed for profit and prestige cannot survive a world without profit and prestige. Machines designed for rugged utility endure because survival is their only logic.
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Civilisation’s Blind Spot
Why then, given the risks we know, do we not shift our priorities? Why do we not demand technologies built for resilience rather than fragility?
The answer lies in the blind spot of civilisation itself. Stability has been the norm for much of the modern industrial era. Globalisation has trained societies to assume that tomorrow’s shelves will always be full, that tomorrow’s grids will always hum, that tomorrow’s technologies will always function. Catastrophe is something that happens to others, far away, in the margins of the news.
This optimism bias permeates our politics and our markets. It is easier to fund a new SUV with voice-activated windows than it is to fund a diesel-hybrid long-hauler with modular components. It is easier to believe in an “inevitable electric future” than it is to acknowledge the messy, unstable planet beneath our feet.
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Towards Resilient Technology
If civilisation is to endure, it must confront this blind spot. Technology cannot only be about profit, convenience, or climate marketing. It must be about resilience. That means:
Modular Design: Vehicles and machines built to be repaired and adapted, not discarded.
Fuel Flexibility: Engines capable of running on multiple energy sources, from diesel to biodiesel to ethanol.
Decentralised Energy: Local generation and storage, not centralised grids alone.
Layered Systems: Redundancy built into transport — EVs, hybrids, diesels coexisting.
Durability: Prioritising longevity over planned obsolescence.
These principles run counter to the incentives of profit-driven markets. They require governments, communities, and cultures to value survivability over margins. They demand that we think like engineers of civilisation, not just engineers of gadgets.
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Conclusion
Civilisation is a fragile experiment. We live not on a stable platform but on shifting tectonic plates, under volatile skies, with weapons that could erase us in minutes. Yet we continue to build machines designed for stability, not for survival.
The car is the metaphor that reveals the madness. Shiny EVs and luxury ICE vehicles are sold as progress, while the real engines of resilience — the simple, durable, adaptable machines — are neglected or scrapped. The logic of profit blinds us to the logic of survival.
If humanity is serious about enduring the shocks that nature and geopolitics will inevitably deliver, then it must redesign its machines with a different ethos. One that sees technology not as a consumer product, but as civilisation’s lifeline.
Until then, the future belongs not to the Teslas, but to the rusted Hilux still running in the wasteland.
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