A book on the position that oil occupies within the holy or unholy economies of the world? Been done before, variously, and no shortage of very interesting conspiracy theories either. Another book on the environmental issues facing us? Not just been done before, but increasingly visible outside your windows, if you care to read or look. But take both of these, and spin a very readable yarn on the role of automobiles ? the faster, the bigger, the newer, the better ? and you suddenly have a book which will stand up and get noticed. And also make a lot of sense, since it is written in a very balanced manner, not taking sides. But placing it like a rather longish report ? one that can be read in the course of a trans-India train ride, which is what I did.
Iain Carson and Vijay V Vaitheeswaran set out to try and explain the way the world will unfold, as seen from behind a steering wheel, and end up providing readers with a very bumpy ride across all points of the horizon. With a very fascinating mix of ground level anecdotal experience and the result of obvious large research and vast knowledge. Through the minefields of international commerce, where even lurking can get you co-opted, they manage to come out unpartisan and not holding a brief for any entity.
Moving through fairly seamlessly from the history of the automobile (restricted largely to the Anglo-Saxon and Japanese world, sadly?) to the role that oil plays with many things that provide grease to keep our world spinning around, though by-passing some of the, uhhm, slightly unclean aspects that also co-exist, like narcotics, arms, and lately banking… It then reaches a series of questions based on the state of the environment as well as the future of renewable energy and its role in automobiles (focus on the leaping dragon from China, while India gets the crouching tiger treatment), Zoom will hopefully help readers within as well as outside North America wake up and realise one very important factor ? that the lead in innovation is once again being taken by a new geographical location challenging the resistance to change in the US.
The question left unanswered, and frankly, as of now, it could swing either way, is whether this new location for innovation will be somewhere else in the US or in some other part of the world. A hint or three are dropped by the authors throughout their book ? it might just not be location specific anymore. Nor would it be technology that can be kept back from enhancers ? witness the way the Toyota Prius has been hacked ? celebrated ? by users to deliver levels of efficiencies way beyond what even the manufacturers could ever imagine.
But a reader in India wants a quick lesson on where to head for in the world to try to get your hands on these new technologies, whether electric, solar, fuel-cell, hydrogen, agro-fuels, windmill, anything ? then pick up a copy of Zoom. That?s in addition to the quick history 101 on all things that made the internal combustion engine what it was over the last few decades. You don?t have to be a petrol-head to enjoy this book, though it helps, especially if you can relate to the concept of being excited by huge changes taking place around us.
In the next book, I hope they can tell us how the war machines which really control this world will get impacted by the global race to fuel the car of the future, and then we should really be talking. Till that happens, this is essential reading. Who knows, you may get the Next Big Idea from this book? But whether you do or not, you will certainly get an idea on who is getting ahead in the technology wars, between India and China, a subject seldom discussed in the Indian media.
The reviewer is an auto expert