I was raised by an auto mechanic, so until he changed careers when I was in high school my father lived and breathed automobiles. Being a daddy’s girl and an only child, I spent a lot of time right next to him with my head under the hoods of many cars. He taught me everything there was to know about cars.
He also passed down his genuine appreciation for, and sometimes obsession with (depending on who you asked), cars and the engines that make them run. It’s crazy to think now, but at one point in my life I had a serious love for internal combustion engines. I was an ICE girl! (Fun fact: My desktop at work was an Audi V8 engine)
One day in 2013 I was driving on I-495 in Silver Spring, MD in my Nissan Maxima 1997, and saw a vehicle I did not recognize (which was very rare because me and my father were so fanatical about everything automobile, even logos). Since I wasn’t driving alone, I had the passenger take a picture on her phone and look up the logo/company…Tesla? My father had recently heard of them, and all their plans for autonomous driving, and was very excited. I had never heard of them before, but it didn’t take long for my interest to grow. Around the same time my husband had also fallen under the Tesla spell, and Tesla Model S quickly became all three of our new dream car.
Sometimes people have the mentality of “good riddance” after they switch from gas cars to electric cars, but the past is there to make your present better. So, thank you ICE vehicles for time well spent with my father, and initiating my love of cars to begin with. I’m #teamEV now, so farewell.
Time spent “under the hood” of my Tesla, is very different than time “under the hood” of an ICE car…
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