I think that, along with a shift in focus to electric vehicles, comes a shift in infrastructure to deal with them, and a shift in our way of thinking of how to best utilise them.
We will start to see:
[ul]
[li]solar power[/li][li]induction plates at every intersection, public carpark, freeway traffic jam hotspot, and parking spaces at work and at home[/li][li]fast chargers at every service station[/li][li]plug in sockets at every Shopping Centre carpark[/li][li]and, as technology constantly improves and lowers in cost, more efficient batteries with longer range[/li][/ul]
But first we have to accept electric vehicles as the future, so that in-roads can be made. If you reject them outright based on how things are now, instead of the long-term or even short-term future prospects, we will be stuck in the Internal Combustion era when it inevitably collapses, instead of transitioning into the only practical workable alternative yet put forward.
I will never figure out the loathing some people have for non-gasoline cars. Nobody is coming for your Suburban, folks. It’s okay for different kinds of cars to exist.
One thing the skeptics have not acknowledged is that most households are two or more car households. Sure, you may not want a roadtrip with your Volt, but you probably also don’t want one with the Miata, either. Quite often, households have one car the basically is only ever used for short commutes,
honestly the only reason electric vehicles are so contentious is because of the Chevy Volt. there’s a group of people out there who act like the only reason the Volt exists is because Obama willed it so as a requirement of BK. Nevermind t.he fact that the Volt program kicked off in 2006 and was basically done before GM declared bankruptcy.
The single problem I have with electric vehicles is the actions of fucking retarded legislators like the douchebags in (surprise, surprise) California. We’ll mandate that you sell a certain number of zero-emissions vehicles, while not mandating that anyone actually buy said ZEVs. Typical Californian bullshit,.
The problem comes in when your mom goes to the hospital 65 miles away and you want to see her. Now, in addition to the stress of her illness, you have to rent a car, because the brand new car you bought for $50,000 is not up to the task of making a short day trip.
And again. EVs are not ideal for everyone. I do not think anyone is arguing that they are. My wife and I are seriously considering the Model X when it comes out. Give it a year to take care of teething troubles that all new models have, and it would be a great second car to replace mine. All three kids and my wife and me would be able to ride at one time, and since my commute is 20 miles, it would be well within its projected 160 mile range.
Do they have a charger at the hospital? Who would you call to find out? Can they guarantee that the one token charger they installed will be free when you arrived?
This is a basic problem with electric cars, which I don’t see going away in the forseeable future. “Refueling” the car becomes something you need to plan for, and allot time for. With a gasoline car, you can stop at any local gas station you happen to be wandering past, and leave <5 minutes later with a full tank. Electric cars are simply less convenient.
What if you have to save three orphans from a fire, and you only have your two-seater sports car? What if you need to haul all of your worldly goods away before your house is destroyed in a hurricane, and you’ve only got a Camry? What if you are going on some Bond style car chase through narrow tunnels, and you only have your hulking Ram? What if you’ve only got enough cash to buy three gallons of gas, and your Range Rover won’t get far on that?
Every car has trade offs. Given that the average US household owns 2.38 vehicles, and a whopping 35% of American households have three or more cars, most people manage to get around these restrictions by taking the other car to the hospital. Having one car that is primarily useful for commutes and in-town travel is no big deal to the vast majority of American households.
And if you only have one car? I live in the city, and tons of people use ZipCars on a regular basis. It may take some creativity, but there are solutions out there.
Sorry, I agree with almost your entire post, but I don’t think 35% constitutes the vast majority of anything.
But, to counter my counter, even if only 35% of American households get an electric car, that’s more than enough vehicles to incent the creation of electric refueling infrastructure and technology that would make the refueling issue a moot point.
It’s not a completely new idea or anything, but here is a recent NatGeo article about using old electric car batteries by connecting them to the power grid.
If we’re serious about energy security, a decentralized grid that can accept a variety of energy sources is where it’s at.
A $50,000 family sedan that can’t manage a trip to a spot 1 hour away is not a “every car has trade offs” type of problem. It’s a “this car’s power plant isn’t ready for prime time” type of problem.
Sure, people have multiple cars, and people with significant disposable income can spend 50Gs on a toy car. They can do this because they have a real car to use when the toy has to be put back in its box.
Not to mention, this particular trade off doesn’t save the buyer any money, doesn’t provide any quantifiable benefit. It’s replacing an engine that works with particular limitations on utility, with a more expensive power plant that performs worse in basically every measurement you can think of. The only thing you save is fuel cost, but with the inherent mileage limitation, it’s impossible to make back the higher purchase cost.
The vast majority of families have more than one car. 35% have enough cars that they can have a commute car, a utility vehicle and the god damned Oscar Myer wiener car if they like.
I’m not sure we agree on what ‘vast majority’ means. The average American family has just over 2 cars. That tells me that a number probably close to 50% of American families have one car or less. Again, that seems to fall significantly short of a ‘vast majority’.
That said, whatever. It’s just a language thing. As I said, I think we both agree on your primary point.
If the average is 2.38 and 50% have only one car, that requires the other 50% to have an average of 3.76 cars. Seem unlikely? Then so are the odds that 50% of households have only one car (or less).
And as already noted earlier in this thread, those with electric vehicles had less of a problem post-Sandy than those with gas-only vehicles. The same was true post-Fukishima. The best option of course is a PHEV that goes far on gas if that is what is available but which is also capable of functioning as an EV for modest range if that is what is.
Also again - the right choice will be different for different households. There is no question however that a pure battery electric (as opposed to a PHEV or EREV) gives up some utility - the ability to travel cross country with that vehicle if nothing else. How much that utility is worth will depend on the individual circumstance. The issue is if the gain is worth it, which also will vary. I do suspect that for many (and for now I am among these numbers) the PHEV approach will be the best option.
