motomonkey
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2009
- Messages
- 1,490
Gas cars are going away for three reasons
1. They are dirty and contribute to greenhouse gas / glabal warming - yes it is man made
2. EVs are an exponential technology. The cost to manufacture drops at the rate of blthe battery's cost.
3. Safety features can be rolled back when humans are no longer driving as accidents will he non-existent decreasing the cost of manufacturing
4. The price of electricity is dropping exponentially because solar and batteries are both exponential technologies
There is a large gap between "Fossil fuel vehicles are going away" and "Humans will not drive themselves anymore" the two concepts are NOT synonymous. People will take a lot of convincing in this country anyway, to give up the autonomy driving gives them. circumstances dictate that if you live in the inner city public transport (plus AV's) make more sense, but a huge portion of drivers are not restricted in that manner, as people already make extensive use of public transit in inner cities.
Certainly at some point in the future fossil fuel IC engines will fade away, but 5 years? certainly not. 10 years? extremely unlikely. perhaps in 20 years most vehicles on the road around major cities will be EV's, and a certain percentage in the rest of the country will be getting there. the problem? your "exponential technology" doesn't exist yet. the infrastructure doesn't exist yet. Batteries frankly, still suck for vehicles, some of the batteries in the research pipeline are promising, but when I can refuel my IC engine in less than 5 minutes, and it takes hours to do so for an EV even with a fast charger, that's just not viable for people that drive a lot.
I don't even understand wtf you are talking about when your mention cars will be cheaper when they can roll back safety features. in what reality do you see that happening? one where lawyers don't exist?
The price of electricity is certainly not dropping because of better battery tech, who's rectum are you pulling these ideas from? 80% of the energy produced in the world still is generated by fossil fuels, the rest mostly Hydro and nuclear, with a small percentage being Solar and wind. Most of the world can't EVER use solar or wind to replace fossil fuels, due to factors such as lack of sunlight and insufficient wind, and/or not enough land to stick massive windfarms on.