Cars 2, WTF is the villain's plot supposed to accomplish?

Before the snide comments let me state I am only wondering about this because my son is obsessed with the Cars series and I have to watch this almost daily.:p:(

So Sir Axelrod’s company discovers a gigantic deposit of oil right when the Cars world is moving toward alternative fuel, so he decides to pull a scam.

He creates Allinol a supposedly renewable fuel brewed from plants or something, in reality it is just gasoline with a secret additive. This additive causes an engine to explode violently when exposed to electromagnetic radiation, and he has developed a gun that fires a beam of electromagnetic radiation.

He sets up a race for worlds best racer, this gets mass worldwide media attention. All cars racing will be using Allinol fuel, which will allow his goons to use the electromag gun at choice moments to make it look like Allinol is unsafe. This will totally discredit Allinol and by association all alternative fuels, sending people back to using gasoline and this will benefit Axelrod since he discovered that gigantic oil deposit remember?

What the hell?

Why not just never create the scam fuel Allinol? Its not like oil is hard to sell currently, its required to sustain the cars lives! And what was the deal with all his goons being “lemons”? Axelrod’s plot makes no sense.

Because, as explained in the OP,

and it’s possible one will be found that makes gasoline obsolete. He’s trying to foster distrust of new alternative fuels in general.

BUT it seems he single handedly created the movement towards alternative fuels when he introduced Allinol, I don’t recall them mentioning any competition. Its one thing for the world to want to move to safe and clean cold fusion, another thing to actually have working tech. There is mention he got lost for 36 days in a jungle while circumnavigating the globe without GPS and he “discovered” Allinol out of need, was that all a scam?

To put it more simply its hard to believe a famous billionaire would commit murder, fraud, even treason all for the sake of discrediting a hypothetical technology that might arise in the future.

It’s no more absurd than most of the Bond villains’ mad schemes.

And the “lemons” are just his henchmen, the underdogs who are easily manipulated to follow him unquestioningly in his crazy plan.

I was taking your word for it being a movement, as I didn’t remember how much was going on relative to alternative fuel in the film. However, I do remember that Allinol was being tested on the cars in the race, and if I’m not mistaken ONLY on the cars in the race. Having that handful of cars testing it in one race is a far, FAR, FAR cry from what I’d call a movement.

So rather than my previous suggestion, it’s probably just your basic megalomaniacal, deluded, avaricious, power-hungry villain at work. Probably doesn’t make sense.

As for what was the deal with all his goons being “lemons”?, those are the disgruntled, low self-esteem vehicles who feel they’ve been given short shrift. They’re all too happy to help get revenge on all the good-looking popular cars.

Pixar wanted Pintos and Corviars but soon discovered that AMC has no lawyers.