Hologram Thomas Edison To Chat With Bob Lutz About Electric Trucks And Possibly Try And Kill Him

In a move that will in no way come off as creepy, awkward, or stupid at all, VIA Motors' press conference tomorrow will feature ex-GM frontman Bob Lutz having a conversation with a reanimated Thomas Edison. VIA Motors puts electric drivetrains in GM vans, trucks, and SUVs, and this will be their first big auto show press conference.

As we all know, having real, live people talk to imaginary people, living or dead, never fails. Plus, a holographic Edison is a great choice, since he was an electric car battery pioneer/experimenter (in a project with Ford) who didn't have so much success:

Edison's batteries, however, were found to have very high internal resistance and were thus incapable of powering an electric car under many circumstances. Heavier lead-acid batteries, which would have made the car too ponderous, were substituted behind Ford's back. When he found out, he went ballistic. The program quickly fell by the wayside as other projects demanded Ford's time. According to The Ford Century, Ford invested $1.5 million (almost $31.5 million today) in the electric-car project and nearly bought 100,000 batteries from Edison before the project fell apart.

So this conversation between Lutz and Edison will likely start off cordial, then get tense as Lutz boasts about the sucess VIA Motors has had with their electric conversions, while Hologram Edison seethes. Since I'm assuming they'll be using a powerful AI that recreates Edison's somewhat volatile and argumentative personality perfectly, things will likely get pretty violent. Based on what I've learned from episodes of Star Trek, "safety protocols" for holographic recreations of people usually fail spectacularly, meaning the recreated holo-people usually go berzerk and try and kill everybody.

That's probably what's going to happen tomorrow. A holographic Thomas Edison, flush with professional jealousy and rage, will try and kill Bob Lutz. Our only hope will be that a holographic Nikola Tesla will appear to distract and fight holographic Edison long enough for Lutz and the collected crowd to make their escape.

I'll cover this live tomorrow. God help us all.

(Source: Wired)