I am starting to think many comments on auto enthusiast websites are bots

I've noticed this too, but it could be attributable to the fact that when we had the effectively mandated auto start stop, proponents of the tech had little to no reason to engage, whereas opponents were pissed and wanted it gone and made sure to voice their displeasure. Now that the incentive to keep putting it in is gone, the proponents now have something to say whereas the opponents "won" and no longer need to bitch about the tech being soft mandated in vehicles.

If you’re reading the comment sections of articles on websites like that you’re doing it wrong.

There are car enthusiast forums you can read instead

MSM articles in general have taken a turn against EVs. The shift is large enough that it isn’t coincidence, but I don’t know why the narrative changed.

A lot of it is probably just selection bias more than some organized campaign. People who are excited about EVs tend to click those articles and comment, while people who don’t care just scroll past, so the tone stacks in one direction. Same thing happens with any niche tech topic. Also some sites moderate harder than others, so you might be seeing a filtered version of the discussion rather than raw opinion. Doesn’t mean there aren’t bots anywhere on the internet, but usually it’s just who shows up to talk.

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Car and Driver went full woke years ago,

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These days they're a car magazine for people that don't really like cars.

Not really surprising since it's reddit, but r/cars also seems to hate cars.

That's because there is heavy manipulation and message-pushing on the internet. It's been going on awhile.

I noticed, going into the 2020 presidential elections- Joe Biden had listed on his official website, that he wanted to ban semiautomatic firearms. It was an specific statement. That was his stated position.

I'm a gun owner, own a number of different guns. I'm a member of quite a few firearms sites and forums. I noticed that any mention of this- even posting a link or screenshot of Biden's site- would result in your post being deleted, you'd get a warning, and would be banned if you kept doing it. S&Wforums and some other places, big sites.

This was not like some sparring on the Political Board here, this was relevant to your ownership. One guy wanted to restrict your gun ownership, it is absolutely a relevant topic for a gun site.

It would be like owning a classic hotrod, being on a site dedicated to that, and discussing a candidate who wanted to ban gasoline engines. It's intrinsic to the hobby. It's not about immigration policies, it's directly about the reason the website exists in the first place.

Finally, a big site (thehighroad), the administrators responded to the complaints.
There was heavy pressure from the website owners (companies that owned the internet space those sites were on), to NOT discuss this. There was an AR site, ARF.com, that was shut down for allowing this to be discussed. Godaddy and some other owner sites; if you mentioned any of Biden's policies in a negative manner, your site would be deleted.
Thehighroad posted this and a lot of info, and stated they were doing this and trying to prepare for being deplatformed.

If this went on for firearms, I'm certain it also was going on for EV vs gas engine stuff. That's when they were trying to force EV down our throats.

It's far more insidious than people realize- it's not so much direct propaganda, but instead it's blocking opposing views from even being discussed. Lot of money involved in this.