Insane Mode

To give this work its full title, the text concerns itself with how “Elon Musk's Tesla sparked an electric revolution to end the age of oil”. Insane Mode therefore centres on two topics: a biography of Musk and the growing momentum behind the electric vehicle industry. McKenzie comes across as a dedicated, diligent and mostly impartial journalist. He travels to three continents (USA, Europe and Asia) and gets access to a range of industry luminaries, which help add credibility to the work. Although much of Insane Mode was familiar to me from a Future Trends perspective, the work is an invaluable primer, even if it already feels slightly dated given the pace at which the industry continues to evolve. Have no doubt, Musk will be remembered as an iconoclastic — even if controversial — visionary. McKenzie never resorts to excessive praise, and some of his insights are highly worthwhile, particularly regarding the differences between “wartime” and “peacetime” CEOs (Musk is clearly one of the former), and also on the intense lobbying of the oil industry to stop the inexorable shift towards electrification. McKenzie captures it well: a system of change: just as salt as a preservative (and currency over which nations fought) was supplanted by the system of refrigeration, so may vehicle electrification and its associated technology stack do away with oil. Not rated.

By Hamish McKenzie