Sir Miles Axlerod

"They laughed at us, but now it's our turn to laugh back. Embrace your inner lemon. Let it drive you. This was meant to be alternate fuel's greatest moment. After today, everyone will race back to gasoline and we, the owners of the largest untapped oil reserve, will become the most powerful cars in the world! They'll come to us and they'll have no choice, because they will need us. And, they will finally respect us. So, hold your hoods high. After today, you will never be ashamed of who you are. Long live lemons!"

- Sir Miles Axlerod rising to power.

Sir Miles Axlerod (simply known as Miles Axlerod) is the main antagonist of Pixar's 12th full-length animated feature film, Cars 2.

He is the manipulative leader of the Lemons who wanted to turn the entire world against alternative fuels and make money out of it. However, his plans were foiled when Mater exposed his crimes.

He was voiced by Eddie Izzard who also played Tony P., Dr. Schadenfreude, and Professor Bedlam.

Personality
Miles Axlerod was a manipulative and scheming fraud that cared about no one but himself. He was able to hide the fact that he is the leader of the Lemons to the public rather easily, and he is a liar as well, even blaming Mater for leaking oil, when in fact, Axlerod did it. However, Axlerod hid this fact by saying, "He's a little excited, isn't he?", meaning he used his intelligence for evil as well.

Axlerod had a secret role as the leader of the Lemons. Depite this, he never revealed himself to them (only his engine) over the majority of the movie. This is likely because he is hiding something he doesn't want his Lemon cars to know. He also made a promise to the rest of the Lemons, saying they will become the most powerful cars in the world, but it's unknown if he would keep the said promise. However, since he didn't care about other car's lives, this is very unlikely. Since it's very likely that Axlerod would break his promise to the Lemons, it's possible that he wants to take over the world himself, but this has never been confirmed.

Because of what Axlerod has done, Mater exposed him for the evil mastermind he is, and Axlerod was arrested because of it. It's also likely the Lemons found out that Axlerod was the "Big Boss" after he was arrested.

Role
Axlerod was first seen during a television interview where he announced his new creation called the World Grand Prix, a three-country race he created that attracts the world’s top athletes and show off his latest creation: a new alternative fuel called Allinol. Many racers around the world (including Lightning McQueen) signed up to participate in the races and test the new fuel, but as time goes by, crashes started to occur due to the Allinol igniting up during the first race in Tokyo.

After getting himself into a undercover mission with British agents Finn McMissile and Holley Shiftwell by accident, McQueen's friend Mater (who has gone undercover) soon learned of a horrible revelation: Professor Zündapp and his gang of Lemon cars are responsible for the crashes as Zündapp created EMP weapons designed as Prix cameras to ignite the Allinol as part of their plan to discredit alternative fuel so that the world can go back using oil, as the lemons still own the largest oil reserves in the world.

Following the sabotage of the second race in Porto Cosa, Axlerod seemingly decides to suspend the races to use Allinol, though McQueen decides to remain using it for the final race in London. Because of this, Zündapp receives his orders from his unseen superior to kill McQueen at all costs, much to Mater's shock. Eventually, Zündapp and his gang were able to track down Mater, McMissile and Holley before trapping them all and heading over to London. After having Grem and Acer to tie up Mater and the agents inside Big Ben to enact the final stage of their plan, Zündapp fires up the EMP beam on McQueen during the race. However, McQueen unexpectedly escapes unscathed, as it turns out that one of McQueen's friends Sarge switched the Allinol with organic fuel to avoid such an incident, just as Mater escapes to warn McQueen. Anticipating that the attempt would fail and that Mater would escape, Zündapp implanted a bomb inside Mater's air filter in hopes that he would set it off to kill both McQueen and Mater. However, Mater uses his rocket booster to speed himself and McQueen out of range, much to Zündapp's anger.

After Zündapp and the Lemon cars end up being defeated by Mater and the others, Mater tries to disarm the bomb, but is unable to do so as it can only be disarmed by the one who activated it, plus he cannot unbolt the bomb out from his air filter. Eventually, Mater soon realizes that Axlerod was the unseen mastermind this whole time, as it turns out that Axlerod pretended to be a hybrid to cover his true colors since he leaked some oil during the Tokyo party and blamed Mater for it. He also realized that Allinol is actually gasoline engineered by Axlerod as part of the plan to discredit alternative fuel. Without hesitation, Mater heads over to Buckingham Palace, where he angrily confronts Axlerod for the plot. At first, Axlerod tried to deny it and angrily warned Mater to stay away from him, but was forced to deactivate the bomb to avoid being killed by the imminent explosion, thus confirming Mater's suspicions. Mater even opens up Axlerod's hood, revealing a Rover V8 engine shown in a photo held by the agents depicting the unseen mastermind with his hood opened up, thus proving to be a perfect match. With the plot exposed, Axelrod is presumed to be arrested along with Zündapp and the Lemons for conspiracy to commit crime, murder and embezzlement.

Quotes
"No, I know him. This is the bloke that called in on the television show. You're the one I have to thank. Ah, he's a little excited isn't he? You got a towel?"

- Axlerod blaming the oil leak on Mater.

"Wait, somebody save me! The lorey's crazy! Keep away, you idiot! Someone do something! You're insane you are! DEACTIVATE!!!"

- Sir Miles Axlerod forcing to reveal his crimes by turning off the bomb to prevent killing himself.

"How did the tow truck figure it out?!"

- Sir Miles Axlerod's last words as he's being arrested for his crimes.

Trivia

 * So far, Axlerod is the only Pixar villain that never revealed his own true nature; Mater exposed it for him because the latter refused to confess it.

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