Lies About Electric Vehicles

Put me down as someone who thinks that petroleum/electric hybrids are a transitional technology. They are the wave of the present and the near future.

Don't know how long the transition will take, or whether the next dominant technology will be electric, hydrogen, replacing real travelling with virtual travelling on Internet 6.0, or something else.

But other than the idea that the major manufacturers are holding out on us, there are probably no real "lies" on the list Aegison posted.

There are exaggerations (we will all be driving EV's in 5 years).
There are opinions (gas technology is "obsolete").

There's one that is a sloppy statement, but in my opinion is likely to sort of come true: "The world is soon going to run out of fossil fuels."
Well, I don't know when soon is--50 years?????????
Well, it may not be "run out of"--more like, "will get so expensive no one will want to use them."
Well, it may not be all fossil fuels--just the more-or-less clean ones and the ones most suitable for smallish transport vehicles like cars and trucks.

But we would be fools to expect that oil will continue to be available for use at current levels for the indefinite future.

We would be fools not to consider the issues of indefinite, unlimited addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

So, my ultimate opinion is we would be fools not to be looking beyond the transitional hybrid technology to something else.

 

Although not an expert on the subject, here's my take on electric vehicles -

* Batteries take hours to fully charge

* It is very difficult to picture 'stations' where a depleted battery is hoisted out, freshly charged battery dropped in place. I just don't see that.

Likely most of the time, owner could charge up at home. But on a road trip, you'd be handing over your property - a very expensive battery ($5k+ ?) while taking on some unknown recharged unit which may be a piece of junk.

* Some people can use all-electric vehicles, but all-electrics obviously don't beat out gas powered cars.

* There were electric cars along side gas cars a hundred years ago. Gas powered engines improved greatly, electric cars went away.

* Hopefullly more hybrids will come along. Plug-in hybrids would be the next step after hybrids.

 

Only a fool would claim to "know" the future. Wars, depressions, technological advances, mass diseases and many catastrophic things which changed the way we live today were not anticipated the day before they happened. Consider 9/11.

Those who are not attracted to electric vehicles are quite free, for now, to ignore them. There may be a time when electric vehicles will be the best possible alternative for travel, so little harm can be done to develop them now for that possibility.

For now they can function quite well as a niche vehicle as my little EV does.

Let the market work for electric vehicles to find their place. They are simple, fun, flexible, and quiet. But I would not expect one to serve me for long distance trips.

Don't sweat them. Just enjoy them if that is what you choose to do.

 

The world will never run out of fossil fuels. Economics will take care of that. There will always be some finite amount left; however, gasoline may be $500 per gallon in real terms.

So, the bottom line is that embracing modern non-fossil fuel technologies is a choice. We should make that choice now before economics forces it upon us.