Here is VW's 5-10 yr vision. What is Toyota's?

what do you define as "soon"?

 

Right about SSD's, but that doesn't mean I don't buy one for my laptop to give it a speed boost.

 

Not if I need 2 cars anyway in the family. Two working adults = 2 cars. Many people have a 3rd vehicle like a pickup truck to take off road or on primative roads, as well as to move furniture, etc. So having a 2nd car for around town purposely only is a fact of life for many people already. Why can't that one be an EV?
Also, A model 3 owner is buying a front row seat to the rise of the practical EV era, and funding further development of the next generation of EVs. To some people, the price of admission is worth it. (yes - to others it is not - and if someone is still building their nest egg, then I'd say any car costing over $15,000 is not the best decision for them). There are various numbers of people in each category, and each will find unique optimization strategies.

 

Maybe this is why VW is talking EV so much:

German push to ban combustion engine cars by 2030
German push to ban combustion-engine cars by 2030 wins support| Reuters

German mentality concerning the environment?
If ICEs get banning in 14 yrs, better start preparing now?

 

Average age 11.4 yrs
253 million cars and light trucks on the road
253 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads; average age is 11.4 years - LA Times
17 million cars and light trucks sold per year
Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com
scrapped 12 million vs buying 17 million (42% * 12 million = 5 million --> bought 42% more new cars than scrapped cars)
Average age of cars on U.S. roads breaks record

So if the scrap to buy new ratio were 1 to 1, it would take ~23 yrs to replace 250 million cars on the road today. I would think that the number of new cars bought vs cars scrapped would not be so huge in the future - perhaps track the US population increase someway?

As for Germany, in 2014 there were ~44 million cars registered and 60 million vehicles in general
2015 Germany Total Number of Registered Cars
3 million car sales
average age 9 yrs
2015 (Full Year) Germany: Best-Selling Car Brands

It seems Germans buy new cars at a faster rate than people in the US and it might only take them 10 yrs to clear out the majority of cars.
It did state somewhere that they still had ~1 million cars registered that were 30 or more years old.

The other factor not considered in this discussion is the ratio of driven miles to car age. All of the discussion was assuming that each of these cars puts on the same number of miles driven each year.

For me, my older vehicle gets fewer miles added each year than the newer ones.

Bottom line - yes, any transition will take a decade or two to make a dent in the makeup of whats on the road.

 

I'm sure there will be resistance, but just the mere fact that it is being discussed is a big "wow" for me. Imagine how many rotten tomatoes would get thrown at anyone here suggesting the US do something similar.

 

Bisco - just the opposite. The proposal has gained cross party support in Germany. I can not imagine the GOP saying that is a good idea when they don't even accept global warming, or science for that matter. I can see many Dems shooting this down as government is choosing winning and losing technologies (and not to mention, not enough money is flowing into my district for project X). Not using the "free market" tool to pick winners and losers, hmmm, definitely a harder sell here than there. Although here it is a deception too in that very few of our markets are truly free when any portion of it is subsidized or taxed. Both systems have risks and rewards, that much I'll admit, but stop there with any other political references.

"A proposal to stop sales of new combustion-engine cars by 2030 has gained cross-party support in Germany's Bundesrat, the country's upper house of parliament, Der Spiegel reported."

note the word cross-party, that's what really amazes me.