People Have A Hard Time With Change — But Electric Vehicles Will Dominate By 2030
People Have A Hard Time With Change — But Electric Vehicles Will Dominate By 2030
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! Steve Hanley wrote a great article about some nonsense lobbying Toyota is already engaged in following the results of the US election. I found Toyota’s complaining to be insidious, ridiculous, and laughable, so ...
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I don’t think the future of EVs is even assured.
Manufacturers and governments are backing away self imposed fossil fuel deadlines. They are still an inferior solution, and offer nothing to the consumer a combustion engine vehicle doesn’t do better.
They need lower pricing, which is never going to happen, and they need cheap electricity. Which is also unlikely - not because of any technological challenges, but because the people than currently run these industries won’t give up profit just for the sake of saving the human race .
I like the idea of a hydrogen engine, when fuel is close to free, but they will never be allowed to be mass produced, because the world economy would collapse pretty quickly .
Sorry I’m rambling.
Electric motors are much more efficient than ICE and produce no emissions. That doesn't seem inferior to me. They require much less cooling, no exhaust, vastly less maintenance, and overall EV cars need about half the parts of ICE. Electricity prices will come down with more governments subsidized investments in renewables. Hydrogen in practical use is currently a joke because the fueling infrastructure doesn't exist and the energy required to convert natural gas to hydrogen is horribly inefficient.
The point is that it is not an argument of efficiency, nor is about which is best for the environment because those are not the factors that will the determine the winner in the next iteration of the car .
By your criteria, the bicycle is an infinitely better solution than either EV or ICE - they and don’t rely on government subsidised fuel.
The further point is about the entrenchment of the ICE vehicle within the global economy, which about to a near infinite force being applied to the success of EVs .
For the reasons you have given, EVs could be ubiquitous already. They could be sold much more cheaply, they they could already have slash demand for oil. But they haven’t. And that it for the reasons I have stated .
A bicycle is absolutely peak efficient transportation. They are just not as comfortable, safe, or as fast as what people are used to. Some car drivers are also disabled (and most are lazy), which eliminates bicycles entirely for them. Ebikes may also convince some to travel on 2 wheels, but the vast majority of able-bodied drivers will still opt for multi-ton, 4 wheel vehicles for safety, speed, comfort, and ease of hauling kids and cargo. Prices of new EV cars have dropped 15% in the last 2 years and used EVs have dropped 42% in just a year. EV prices will continue to drop as US lithium production increases. In recent years: US oil production has skyrocketed, keeping oil cheap and further slowing adoption. Add the protectionist tariffs imposed on Chinese EVs and its clear our inevitable EV future is getting sandbagged by those with vested interests.