When Walt Disney Co. announced earlier this month that it was finally ditching smog-spewing gasoline engines at its beloved Autopia attraction in Anaheim, the company left some key details to the imagination.
Would the new ride vehicles be purely electric? Or would they be hybrids that would still burn some climate-destroying petroleum-based fuel? And how long would it take Walt Disney's creative and engineering heirs to make the long-awaited change?
After I wrote a story breaking the news about the company's plans, a coalition of electric vehicle activists launched a campaign to pressure Disney to commit to electric vehicles (not hybrids) and phase out gasoline in a period of two years.
On Thursday, those activists won.
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In a written statement, Disneyland spokesperson Jessica Good confirmed to The Times that electrification “means fully electric, it does not mean hybrid or any other version of a gasoline combustion engine.” She added that the theme park “will no longer be using the current engines within the next 30 months.”
That means that by fall 2026, Disneyland guests will no longer have to worry about breathing in lung-damaging exhaust fumes while waiting in line for Autopia, and park employees won't have to spend hours-long shifts inhaling those fumes. while they work on the attraction.
It is still unclear when the newly electrified Autopia will reopen.
“Reimagining an attraction takes time, so we don't have a reopening date at this time,” Good said.
Zan Dubin, the electric vehicle advocate leading the pressure campaign, was excited when she heard the news Thursday. She called it a “huge victory” and a powerful reminder that climate activism works.
“All it takes to keep bad things happening is for good people to do nothing,” he said, paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln. “And we refuse to stand by and do nothing.”
Dubin had been planning to lead a meeting outside Walt Disney Studios in Burbank on Sunday, to urge the company to improve at Autopia. She told me that she will go ahead with the event, although she said that now it will be more of a celebration.
“We are delighted,” he said.
The stories Disney tells in its theme parks (and on its streaming services, cruises and other platforms) are much more than entertainment. They play a powerful role in shaping how we understand our world and ourselves. That's why the company's decision to close Disneyland's Splash Mountain attraction, which was based on a racist film, and its increasing adoption of LGBTQ+ characters in its films have become points of political tension. Those who oppose progress know that these options are important.
If you care about climate progress, you should care about Autopia.
Disneyland visitors wait to exit the Autopia attraction in March.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
When the attraction opened in 1955 as the centerpiece of Walt Disney's Tomorrowland, it helped cement in the American consciousness the idea that gas-guzzling cars and sprawling highways were the promise of the future. Within a year, President Eisenhower had signed the bill that would create the interstate highway system as we know it today.
Nearly 70 years later, cars, trucks and other forms of transportation are the country's largest source of heat-trapping emissions, emissions that have fueled record global temperatures for 10 straight months, resulting in heat waves, fires and deadliest storms. Burning fossil fuels also produces ancient air pollution that researchers say kills millions of people each year.
Simply switching from gasoline engines to electric cars will not solve all of our environmental and public health problems.
Mining to supply lithium for lithium-ion electric car batteries can be environmentally destructive in some places. Historically, freeways have been built through low-income communities of color, tearing apart vibrant neighborhoods. The more we can rebuild our cities around public transport, e-bikes and green spaces (and less around cars), the happier and healthier we will be.
Beyond Autopia, Disney has the opportunity to promote that kind of future in Tomorrowland.
As I wrote earlier this month, Disneyland fans agree that the once-futuristic land hasn't been especially progressive for a long time. In my opinion, clean energy and sustainability would be the perfect theme for a new and improved Tomorrowland. There is already an important public transportation element in the Monorail. Add some gasless induction stoves in the main restaurant, some solar panels, some ambient movies in the currently empty movie theater – it could be pretty awesome.
But even before all that, we're going to need a lot of electric vehicles, quickly, to get the climate crisis under control. And for Disney to start telling the story of those electric vehicles in Autopia is a big deal. The company deserves credit for getting it right.
“I'm glad they're stepping up and doing the right thing,” said Joel Levin, executive director of Plug In America, a national electric vehicle advocacy group that is sponsoring this Sunday's rally. “It's a great way for the public to experience electrification, to make it a teachable moment, rather than the experience of standing next to a gas-powered lawnmower, which is what it feels like now.”
Autopia's original sponsor was Richfield Oil, which later merged with another company to create ARCO. From 2000 to 2012, oil giant Chevron Corp. took a turn as a financial backer of the iconic attraction. The current sponsor of the trip is Honda.
It's unclear whether Honda will play a role in Autopia's reinvention. The automaker did not respond to a request for comment and Disney declined to comment. However, MotorTrend magazine reported in 2016 that Honda's sponsorship deal would last for 10 years, meaning it could expire in 2026, in line with Disney's recently promised timeline for phasing out gasoline engines.
Whether it's Honda or some other company, there should be no shortage of enthusiastic sponsors: for an all-electric Autopia and for any other sustainable and climate-friendly innovation that Disney wants to show at Tomorrowland. The future is bright.
