Should we use the name Electronic Cars for EVs?

A thought about terminology for clarity

Image credit: Grok, using my prompt

Electric Vehicles and gasoline cars are more similar than different, with four wheels, four seats, a driver’s seat with a steering wheel and pedals, windshield with wipers, doors, trunk, and cup holders.

Both carry a supply of energy you need to replenish every few hours of driving time. Some gasoline vehicles go farther than some EVs on a tank of gas, and some EVs go farther than some gasoline cars on a charge. The price of the fuel varies from an equivalent of about $1 per gallon to $5 per gallon across the country.

But the biggest difference is in the electronics, the controls you don’t see and the information coming through the dashboard screen and speakers. The Electronic Vehicles tend to be the ones with sensors that look all directions at once and show you the locations of all the cars around. They have the most extensive entertainment options; you can load your games into the car’s memory and play them on the car’s screen. You can read your email. You can post on Substack. The car you have is not the car you bought because updates come to it through the air. You can buy the Full Self Driving feature.

Right now, early 2026, the US new car sales are made up of about 80% pure gasoline drivertrain, 15% combination gas plus battery and electric motor, and 5% pure electric. Every month the fraction of the fleet that is pure gasoline cars is shrinking and the fraction that is pure battery is growing. Compared to a pure gasoline drive train, the hybrids are more complicated and the pure electric cars are simpler.

The people using the pure electric cars are mostly:

• male

• younger adults

• can and do charge overnight at home

• lease instead of buying

If you are not in this demographic you might not see what the fuss is all about.