Lots of them around…:)

We supposedly don’t do that, communist countries do. :)

Well. Maybe a a shift in thinking. If you're driving around town is the issue, I expect charging at night while you sleep is the answer. The charging stations are for when you go more than 400 miles in a day (current range of Tesla's - sort of). Most people's local driving is not over 300 miles a day, so lots of buffer there.

And honestly I don't mind if they would make it illegal to drive more than 6 to 8 hours without a break, at some point in there the driver becomes a hazard. A 15 to 30 minute potty and snack break can be refreshing.

Everyone I know that has a Tesla says that it's range is not a serious limitation on cross country driving.

I guess if someone is used to having two 50 gal side thanks on the pickem'up truck, that could be simulated with a UHaul like trailer full of batteries, although that might get a little expensive - LOL!

Actually went to steam and electricity vehicles first. Original Henry ford vehicles was supposed to run on renewable alcohol. Then found use for waste highly combustible by product fuel that kerosene produced.

:bigbow:

They were tried but found not to be practical - basically, they could not compete with th energy density of fossil fuels. So, they were relegated to the back burner until now, and even now, we are just beginning to be able to use electric for that reason (energy density).

But, I am sure you saw my point - thing usually seem to take forever, until they happen then all of a sudden we look around and ask, how did that happen so fast. :)

Those trucks are for specific use, most never owned them or thought about owning them.

Driving already a hazard. Tesla enjoy the low volume of fully electric vehicles on road right now. Not so much when that number explodes. As far as driving around town, yes electric way go. Most of population can’t afford 40 to 100K vehicles to just drive around town.

Unfortunately it was one of the biggest mid truths. President fired his economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for saying that the total cost of invading Iraq might come to as much as $200 billion. President instead stood by such advisers as Paul Wolfowitz, who said that the invasion would be largely "self-financing" via Iraq's oil, and Andrew Natsios, who told an incredulous Ted Koppel that the war's total cost to the American taxpayer would be no more than $1.7 billion.

I don't think the narrator breathed once during the whole film!

Next time you are impatiently waiting in line for gasoline and that guy in front of you seems to be taking more than ten minutes to fill up and wash his window, think about how long you would have to wait for him to charge his battery powered vehicle. Think about two or three in front of you. Better off thinking of the old city street cars that had power hanging over the top of them as they road down the street.

Achieveable? Sure. But not with the current battery technology. Good idea? Only if you like polluting the environment with coal-burning power plants and digging up the 3rd world for the rare minerals to build them with.

That 1000 lb battery in your Telsa required some Mexican to dig 250 TONS of the highest-grade lithium ore in the world, from a giant open pit mine in Sonora, Mexico. Then he had to treat it with another 250 tons of poisonous, stinking sulphuric acid to leach out the half-ton of lithium needed for your ONE battery. We've got lithium in America, but no sane American would allow an ecological disaster like that in their own back yard.

By the way, there are 1.5 billion vehicles in the world and at least 4.5 billion people still waiting for theirs. Do the math

No doubt, some day, all vehicles will be electric, but they will draw their power directly from the atmosphere, as Tesla demonstrated over a 100 years ago. They will probably also fly, using some as yet undiscovered mechanism. And the power won't come from a coal burning power plant, but from a solar farm in orbit, where the sun shines all the time and isn't filtered through 100 miles of atmosphere (or require mowing down a forest the size of Texas).

We've still got 100 years worth of fossil fuels left. What's the hurry?

I agree with you. And yes, most can't afford new technology of any kind.

I have mentioned before (maybe not here) that I can recall the first time I saw a flat screen TV. In 1997, Sharp and Sony introduced the first large flat screen TV. It was created using the PALC technology and measured 42 inches, a record size at the time. This first model sold for more than $15,000, making it well out of reach for most Americans.

I expect everyone here has flat screen displays - computers, TV's, phones, etc. And most of them cost a little less than that.

It's the early adopters that can afford it that encourage the money people to invest and drive the product into mass production. In the case of EV's it is a major paradigm shift, which has to drag with it more than just cars, but our entire energy economy. And that is not going to be easy. EVERYTHING, from business financing to manufacturing processes are based on cheap high density energy. Banks make credit available to companies, based on business plans that as based on cheap high density energy.

So, yeah, this is not going to be easy or fast. But, it won't ever happen if we don't start. American can choose to lead the world or follow the world but I believe it is coming, and it would be a shame for us to pass up the opportunity to lead the world in this shift.

Well, I agree, and so do all the engineers (including Musk) that the battery chemistry has to improve before mass production is viable, but here are two things that come to mind about the "rush".

1. It will take, probably, at least 50 years to wean ourselves from high energy density fossil fuels in all fields, manufacturing, transportation, medicine, farming, electrical generations, heating, cooling, etc, etc, etc. Everywhere it is used. That change should probably happen BEFORE we run out. The 100 years is one estimate, there are others, and there is no point to debating the exact number. Oil is a finite resource. It will run out some day. If we don't have in place a viable replacement BEFORE it runs out, how do you think that is going to turn out for cities like NYNY that have 25,000 trucks moving in and out of the city every day bringing food and products and taking out trash and garbage? That is just one large city.

2. Oil is a finite resource and used in a lot of places, like medicine, fertilizer, etc. And if we waste what we have left moving 5,000 lb of metal car carrying 200 lbs of people meat (4 percent payload - LOL!) back and forth to work, then we may find some of those life saving medicines might not be available when we need them later. And all those crops that feed our 7 billion people might struggle without fertilizer.

Just saying, waiting until you HAVE to do something is not always the best choice, when it can become a matter of life and death.

So, my feeling is let's start now, like Tesla is, and let those that can or want to afford to be early adopters fund it. Let them be the pioneers that refine and develop the tech.

Better to slowly grow the number of EVs over a couple decades, so we can learn where the bugs are and how to make them safer, and better and cheaper, and etc etc etc.

Then when we need them, we will have a pretty good idea how to make them - or maybe we will have figured out that they are not the best way to go, and look someplace else, like hydrogen fuel cells, or maybe micro nuke power plants, or who knows.

Originally Posted by MartinSE View Post
Well, there is a chicken and egg issue. But, I would say you have to have demand for EVs BEFORE you can afford to solve the issues you brought up.

Who do you think is going to invest the trillions of dollars to convert to an all electric economy if there are no customers?

Both have to happen - more or less at the same time."

Using the term "all electric economy" is not having all electric cars and does not eliminate use of Fossil Fuels. Electricity does not just exist simply by plugging in to the wall. Electricity is made by solar, water power, nuclear, wind, chemical reaction and guess what Fossil fuels. You need to increase the per centage produced by renewable power sources substantially to reduce fossil fuel needs. That has been a slow change and there is no breakthrough news saying that is near term .

I am all for EVs, but we shouldn't mistake that as elimination of our need for fossil fuels just because they are electric. It certainly would be a step to reduce pollutants.

I think you pretty much agreed with my posts. Tesla is doing the job of being a pioneer, and getting EVs into consumers hands. It is budding demand (they currently can't keep up) and making significant advances on battery chemistry already.

There is a massive amount of work to be done before we can shift from a fossil fuel economy to an electric economy. Yes, all the sources you mentioned and more can be used to create/generate the electricity. There is no one size fits all, like there is (more or less) with fossil fuels. Each area will need it's own source and distribution systems.

But, we have to start someone, and now is as good a time as any. Momentum will build, demand will build and we will get there, probably total conversion will take 50 years - maybe sooner, maybe not.