The Phantom of the Exhaust
I arrived at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre NMACC in Mumbai in eerie silence No growling exhaust no mechanical symphony just a muted hum of electric propulsion My chariot for the evening The MercedesBenz EQB a car that Ive been living with for the past few weeks As a diehard petrolhead I should have felt the absence of drama but the EQBs effortless acceleration the sheer convenience of needing just 500 to make the PuneMumbai journey and the evergrowing reality of electrification gnawed at me Was I too caught between two worlds much like Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera
The setting for the evening was grandMercedesBenz had invited me to the firstever Indian showing of The Phantom of the Opera an iconic tale of love obsession and inevitability And somewhere between the overture and the final crescendo it dawned on me this was more than just a stage performance It is an analogy for the very battle unfolding in the automotive world
The Phantombrooding brilliant yet ultimately doomedis the internal combustion engine Like Erik the tortured genius ICE has defined its era with breathtaking artistry It has given us the roar of a V8 the scream of a highrevving inline engine and the thundering growl of a turbocharged mill It has shaped automotive history lured enthusiasts into its embrace and built a legacy that still haunts the corridors of the industry
Christine Daa torn between her love for the Phantom and the stability promised by Raoul embodies sustainabilitycaught between an undeniable attachment to ICE and the unavoidable pull of a cleaner more responsible future She adores the Phantom cherishes the music he creates but deep down she knows she cannot stay Sustainability too looks back at combustion engines with a sense of nostalgia but reality forces its hand The era of unfiltered gasguzzling passion is fading
And then there is Raoulstable practical and inevitable Raoul is electrification He is not as dramatic or as intense as the Phantom but he represents the future Much like Christines decision to choose Raoul the world is leaning toward electrification not out of sheer passion but because it is a rational sustainable choice
The EQB that I arrived in may lack the mechanical poetry of an AMG V8 but it is impossibly smooth its acceleration brisk and its running costs nearly negligible Raoul may not set your heart on fire but he ensures the show goes on
In the final act of The Phantom of the Opera Christine kisses the Phantomnot out of love but out of sympathy gratitude and perhaps a final farewell to what he once was That in essence is how enthusiasts might bid adieu to ICE thanks to societal pressures among other things We can admire it even celebrate it but we may not stay in its embrace forever
As the curtain fell and I walked back to my silent electric steed the metaphor felt complete The Phantoms mask was left behind a relic of a magnificent yet vanishing era And as I drove off I feared that whether I liked it or not I had already stepped into the future