Bradley Brownell

  My ships are burning on the beach, and I’m the one who set them ablaze. There is no turning back now, no way to beat a retreat. I’ve turned my face toward the enemy, and whether I march forth alone or we all step synchronically toward a better future, I’ll take that step regardless. […]

The first car ever used by a sitting American president in an official capacity was electric. All the way back in 1902, President Roosevelt took a ride in a handsome Bailey Electric Victoria Phaeton as he paraded through Hartford, Connecticut. Through the decades, necessitated by world wars and assassinations, the president’s state car has evolved […]

I know we’re just under three weeks into 2021, but this year feels like a really important one for electric propulsion. For at least the last five years I’ve been repeating this mantra over and over every January, but I swear there’s real change in the air right now. It’s not just hopeful optimism. There […]

Last week Tesla unveiled a $3,000 third row seat option for the Model Y. From the moment the first photograph of that rear seat showed up online, the internet was abuzz with laughter at the idea of anyone fitting in a third row. The Model X is available as a three-row layout, but that behemoth […]

I’ve never loved my iPhone. I don’t even feel particularly loyal to Apple, despite having bought three of them. The user interface is okay, but nothing spectacular. It’s an ergonomic nightmare. The iPhone keeps control of the smartphone market because it’s competent. It does everything pretty well, and there isn’t a lot of learning curve […]

We’re leaving 2020 in the rear view mirror, and heading into 2021 with at least a modicum of optimism. After this year it feels weird to be hopeful, but I think we can all hope that this year will bring a fix for the virus, a fix for the environment, a fix for our government. […]

The average person living in the United States is responsible for about 16 tons of carbon dioxide and methane annually. That’s about four times as much as the global average. To avoid globally catastrophic climate warming, we need to reduce the carbon footprint of every human on earth to under two annual tons as soon […]

When Nissan first built the relatively compact 24 kWh battery stack in my 2011 Leaf a decade ago, the Japanese automaker paid in the realm of $24,000 to conjure it into existence. With an original MSRP of just over $35,000 before any tax incentives, Nissan was essentially selling an eleven thousand dollar car with twenty-four […]

Branding is everything. Any car with an ‘eco mode’ is immediately setting itself up for failure. Your brain instantly knows that you’re sacrificing something for the sake of economy, perhaps for the sake of the environment. It’s never really very clear what you’re sacrificing, but the glowing green leaf symbol on your dashboard makes it […]

Last week headlines littered the internet with Elon Musk indicating he might be interested in merging Tesla with another automaker in the near future. There are hundreds of reasons that this makes sense, but there is really only one auto conglomerate that can offer Tesla what it needs while needing what Tesla offers. That’s right, […]