Slashdot Mirror
Another Elon Musk Bet: Half of All Cars Built In 2032 Will Be Electric
New submitter cartechboy writes "Ears perked up when Elon Musk made another bold statement he'd be 'willing to bet on.' This time he says that in 20 years, half of all new cars sold would be plug-in electric cars. Believe him? The math looks a little fuzzy, and one research analyst is willing to take Musk up on the bet. 'It expects the U.S. plug-in market to grow at a 32-percent average rate from now through 2020. That takes sales to roughly 200,000 units in 2020. Even if that rate continued for another 12 years, which Hurst considers unlikely, that would only take plug-in cars to roughly one-third of the market in 2032, or about 5 million sales. But Hurst thinks 8 or 10 percent annual growth in plug-in sales is more reasonable, taking the total to 480,000 or 574,000 plug-ins sold in 2032 in the U.S.'"
I wanted to make a post from my electric car but I ran out of powe*&^%^@*&^#####
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Musk did not say anything about US car production, so it looks like Hurst constructed a straw man here.
If gasoline starts getting expensive, people might start seriously considering electric cars. A major drop in price of electric cars (or really the batteries) could also speed up adoption.
Of course, Europe already has expensive gas due to taxes and the roads aren't filled with electric cars. It'll still take some time.
1977 Mercedes-Benz, 300,000+ miles and still going strong.
I expect I will STILL be driving it in 2032 when I has 600,000+ miles on it.
I suppose the other 50% will be petrol or diesel powered. Will these fuels be affordable in 2032?
With lesser amount of Petrol left in the world (in next 20+ yrs), where else will you turn to? Its Electric all the way..
The first electric car with 200+ mile range and a less than $25,000 price will be the biggest seller in the market overnight.
Just those two items alone would probably cause Musk to be right. And that's what he's betting, that the battery range and price will come down to the point that everyone can afford an electric car and that it will have a range similar to that of a gasoline engine. If the market delivers those specs I think he'll be right, you can drive an electric car for about $0.10 cents a mile, the gas savings alone would so massive everyone and their dog would want one.
What could you do if you didn't have to buy gas anymore?
Battery powered electric cars were dropped in the past, and will be in the future. Without the vast subsidies propping up the things, they will simply not be built except in limited quantities.
Now if he had stated simply electric, and not plug-in electric, then I might have agreed. The future is electric - it's just not battery powered electric.
But the real truth is hydrocarbons dominate, and will be with us for a LONG time to come as a means of transportation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's all about Battery technology really. If battery technology improves significantly and the price becomes more affordable then I think electric cars, particularly commuters, will start selling much better. Absent some big improvement they will remain a niche market.
Take a look at this graph and tell me petrol will eb affordable a few decades from now:
http://www.durangobill.com/RolloverPics/RolloverGap.jpg
In addition to that battery technology will likely continue to improve. There's already
batteries on the market that can recharge in minutes, and charging systems to
faccilitate that kidn fo current exists. I'm not talking about some hyped "may lead
to improvements" kind of tech. I'm talking about tech that already exists, but which
is presently too expensive to compete with Oil. Give it another few decades of oil
depletion and improved manufacturing techniques and that balance will shift.
Hydrogen fuel cells will win out because you can refuel them in as much time as it takes to refuel a gas or diesel car.
Electric will be held back by the cost, limited lifespan, weight, and recharge time of the batteries.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Predictions are hard. To borrow someone else's words (from RIM I think), in 1880 people were looking for some better way to move horses through the streets instead of changing to a different game like a car for personal transport. Instead of a better car it could be a move to something like a skilift, more motorbikes, or more likely something else I've never thought of.
Fuel isn't the only problem. Traffic congestion is a nightmare in many places. I doubt we'll see hundreds of millions of electric cars in tightly packed Chinese cities.
2008 - The Tesla Roadster is a $110,000 (base price) sports car with a 244 mile range.
2012 - The Tesla Model S is a $57,000 - $77,000 (base price) sedan with 160 - 300 mile range.
2015 (estimated) - Tesla Gen III Sedans are targeting $30,000 base price with comparable Model S ranges.
In addition, Tesla is rolling out a "supercharge" network to support changing away from home in convenient locations in target markets. The Model S has also been promised to include a 5-minute battery quick change option. Once that is available at (for instance) gas stations, it'll take as much time to refill your electric as it does to refill your gas car, except it'll cost a whole lot less.
This guy is actually delivering functioning, functional electric cars and building the infrastructure to support them. I wouldn't bet against him; everyone who's done that so far has been proven wrong repeatedly.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I don't know much about charging up an electric car... but would 50% electric cars be really taxing on the electric grid? Especially if battery are developed that can charge a lot faster and hold a lot bigger charge? Won't the grid infrastructure need to be upgraded to support all those vehicles charging up? Seems like more then just building cars.
The growth curve won't be steady. It is going to grow fairly slow for some time, until there is a break through and the curve will jump to another level. When the curve will jump and by how much is unknown. It all depends on innovation. Taking an average rate on this kind of curve is only useful when you look back and try to measure the impact of the past innovation. It is not useful for predicting the future.
In _The Innovator's Solution_ a decade ago this exact problem is examined, based on a study that was done for the auto industry. The study identified several factors that are required at a competitive price point for pure electric cars to compete against gas cars in the mass market:
1. 0-60 fast enough to merge onto freeways.
2. 200 mile+ range on one charge.
3. Able to recharge in 15 minutes or less.
Given current trends in battery technology, this should become feasible around 2020. Those trends have held up, and there is no reason to doubt that they will continue to hold up. Therefore somewhere around 2020 I expect to see, without massive subsidies being needed, electric cars whose utility to the average consumer matches gas cars.
It may take a while for the public to wake up and smell the coffee, but 12 years after that I would completely expect to see electric cars dominating the road.
If gasoline powered vehicles become cost prohibitive to operate and electric vehicles are still expensive, total sales may drop as people are economically forced out the market. "Plugin" vehicles (which include plug-in hybrids) could still be 50% of the (smaller) market.
"Second, an oil price shock would have to drive gasoline prices to $8 or $10 a gallon"
Are these guys kidding? If the global economy wasn't in such a precarious state, gas would be over $5/gallon *now*! In 2032, $10/gallon gas will be a fond memory.
"I doubt we'll see hundreds of millions of electric cars in tightly packed Chinese cities"
Why is that?
With mass urbanisation and huge infrastructure investments Chinese cities are better able to handle traffic congestion than millennium old European cities (London, Rome, Paris, etc) or large North American cities that pre-date motorised vehicles (LA, NY, Vancouver, etc).
Beijing is pretty much a worst case and has 5 million car for 20 million people .. that is right on par for 350 million vehicles for a population around 1.3-1.4 billion
Front, back, left or right?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Why all the efforts for the fast charging?
Wouldn't it be easier to have replaceable battery pack. At the station,
the whole pack could be changed with a forklift in a few seconds.
Additionally, the batteries could be leased, not bought (this would
reduce the initial cost of the car, speeding up adoption). The station
could do maintenance for the packs or send them to be refurbished when
necessary.
When not going long distances, conventional overnight charging at home
should be OK.
For anything hemp can do, something else can do better. Those things may not be all-in-one solutions like hemp, but if you're focused on one particular industry, such as paper, then you shouldn't be concerned if the plant you're growing can also be used to make plastics or clothes. Your main concern should be maximizing paper.
If they can bring that down, the other issues aren't such a big deal. A big reason is that you can refuel an electric in your house, which means that range doesn't need to be nearly as large. Sure if you are the kind of person who does big road trips you'll need more range and the ability to refuel all over, an electric doesn't do that. However most people don't do that, they drive around the city.
160 miles will do nicely for that, provided you can refuel often. If you can do it every night, no problem at all. Very, VERY rare someone would drive more than that on a normal day.
So the big issue is just getting electrics cost competitive with gas cars. At that point, I think the market will take off.
Most people have their car as a dual-use vehicle. First they commute to work, bring the kids to school and get groceries at shops nearby. This is something an electric car can do just fine. (except for really long commutes). But then they also use that same car to go to friends who live 200 miles away, or go on vacation 500 miles away. Those are things that electric cars are not good at. When it becomes accepted practise that you rent a car for this, that's when things can take off.
Markets are complicated things. If it is accepted that you pay $700 for a fancy phone, that's what people will pay. If it is accepted that you pay for owning and driving a car. that's what people will pay. If the prices to own and operate cars continue to rise slowly, then people will adapt and continue to pay rediculous amounts (according to current standards), even if it starts taking a significant portion of their income.
A sudden increase in say gasoline prices of say a factor of two will make a bunch of people think twice. Some will say F*** it and sell the car. Some will switch to electric. But most will adapt, and simply pay the higher price. A few years later a few percent of the population has changed their behaviour due to the increased pricepoint. But the majority continues the same old way.
The parallel here is cigarettes. Sometimes the government increases the taxes by a few percent causing a significant bump in the price for those things. A few people give it up and a few months later, everything is back to the way it was.
just checking to see if it still takes forever to post a comment.
I can't see how this will work when not a single electric car is aimed at families.
Living in London I am repeatedly told I should be driving a "green" car instead of my big Renault Espace diesel. The complaint I normally get is that diesel is dirty but as far as I can find while that is true for old diesels without modern filters (+10 years old) it isn't the case with the modern diesels.
Also I almost never drive anywhere with less than 6 people in the car and walk whenever the distance is within a mile and there is nothing bulky to transport.
I have done extensive research into available electric cars but they simply aren't big enough to fit more than 3 children or 4 in a pinch when they have grown out of the legally mandated child seats.
Until we see 6 and 7 seater electrics I don't see it as being anything other than a DINK statement to show off the "green credentials".
Sorry Elon, but unlike the Americans, Toyota has been working on fuel efficient cars for the last 20 years, and they are good at cost control. Take the average mid sized, ~25 mpg car. Toyota's "normal" mid sized hybrid cars average 40 mpg. The Prius averages 49 mpg. Eventually, Toyota will switch the Prius to aluminum, and put in its experimental engine that gets several percent more thermal efficiency. Throw in a few more tweaks, and a 60 mpg Prius seems possible. Compare that to 89 mpge Model S, which is already aluminum based.
The biggest change will probably be the big decline in SUVs on the road. That's what Europe did. Europe already has 9 dollar/gallon gasoline, so the internal combustion engine is going nowhere.
Developments in Lithium-Air batteries are rapidly making them viable, and are conservatively estimated to give ten times the power/weight of Li-Ion.
There's also been a number of advances in high-surface-area electrodes that dramatically increase charge and discharge rates. Some of these have already made it to market, such as the MIT spinoff A123 Systems - which coincidentally enough has developed a Lithium Iron electrolyte that handles extreme temperatures very well..
There's a great deal of industrial interest in improving battery technology, and claiming that there's been no breakthroughs in years is simply ignorant, I'm afraid. If you're paying attention, the future of batteries looks pretty rosy.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I find the idea that electric cars would solve the sustainability problems we're seeing naive, at best. Most of the electricity production comes from fossil fuels anyway. Wind and solar won't be able to step in to replace this energy production, we simply don't have enough material to produce that many wind/solar farms. Nuclear, you say? If we were to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, the uranium would last about 20-50 years, just postponing the problem while adding a shitload of radioactive waste to it.
The only reasonable thing is to step away from the entire automotive regime. This is the only solution that will reclaim the cities to their citizens and stop the killing of 1.3 million people per year (and that's just in direct traffic accidents, not counting indirect deaths through e.g. air pollution).
Technical "progress" in the current system of innovation won't be able to do anything about the fact that the material basis of our existence is quite finite.
(Sorry about not posting sources, I work in this field and generally would - but I'm on vacation!)
I'm with Musk on this one. It's really easy to underestimate the growth of emerging technologies.
In the 2000 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency forecasted that the installed capacity of PV solar cells in Europe in 2010 would be 1.6 GW (see page 294). To hedge their bet, they also included an "alternative policy scenario" where PV capacity reached 2 GW in 2010, corresponding to an average capacity growth rate over 1997 levels (0.5 GW) of 11.3% per year. So, what really happened? In 2010, there was 28 GW of PV capacity in the EU. And just last year Europe installed another 22 GW.
Sometimes, revolutions happen.
You missed his main point. Just like the car brought about a complete rethink compared to horses and carts, there could be some radically game changing technology introduced which makes cars redundant within cities. My personal bet is along the lines of robotic taxis...
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
An electric car is fast and practically soundless. The 3rd World War on roads, with current 1.5 million killed and about 7 million wounded per year, will go on for 20 more years.
But maybe by 2032 people would get smarter and build the Internet of things at last, not to drive 3000 pounds vehicle to sign a document or buy a bottle of milk.
you can't use maths to work this out. It's about technology. Virtually every manufactuer has an electric/hybrid program - it will become just partof the normal technology progression. How long to get all cars with fuel-injection, with variable valve timing?. These things sneak up at some point some manufactuers will only make electric/hrbrid cars
In Canada .. the gas is taxed to the tune of 40% ( tad more )
Governments are not inclined to go forward with electrical cars for the simple
reason they will loose all that money they collect.
Just a fact of life.
Surely with this technology there will be an inflexion point when it becomes economical to sell electric cars instead of petrol engine cars. This will probably be a combination of rising petrol prices and dropping prices for batteries, and infrastructure for recharging being widely available. Up until that point growth will be fairly staid, then over a period of five-ten years the entire market switches to the new technology. Elon Musk clearly thinks that inflexion point is before 20 years from now.
One thing you cannot do is simply extrapolate a line from a couple of years of electric car sales and assume that is how it is going to continue.
We are at the beginning of an era of cheap fuel. Shale gas and shale oil are very plentiful and are distributed all over the world. This is going to be a real game changer. It will make alternate energy pointless in economic terms.
By 2035 we will be in the middle of a cold period due to reduced solar activity and nobody will believe that CO2 is causing global warming any more. That makes alternate energy pointless in environmental terms.
In 1967 and 1973 we had an oil embargo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis OPEC was created and the price of oil went up. At one point cars were lined up for blocks at gas stations. The economy tanked and we got stagflation. Alternate energy research blossomed. The big oil companies were building PV solar panels. The hippies were building windmills and electric cars. Then oil got cheap again. Everything went back to the way it was before the oil crisis.
Electric cars will be like PV solar panels. They look promising but ... Personally, I think the thing that kills them will be taxation. Governments get huge revinue taxes from the sale of gasoline. If that decreases because there are a significant number of electric cars, governments will find a way to tax away the advantage of electricity.
OK, I'll bite ... how does a robotic taxis instead of a car relieve congestion?
Great. Between this and power generated by cheap natural gas due to fracking, which puts 40% less CO2 into the atmosphere already (this has caused he US in the last 5 years to exceed the rest of the world's Kyoto efforts already) we're gonna risk inducing another ice age and will have to mandate huge gass guzzlers.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Commercial trucking may go to natural gas. Once that's well along, getting it deeper into the suburbs for light vehicles may not be a stretch.
The EV1 was a GM test run of battery powered vehicles that was crushed out of existance by the Bush administration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
You are all forgeting that the price of gasoline in 2032 may very well be astronomical due to dwindling supplies.
There is actually a good reason for the slow change. The energy industry gets massive subsidies (mostly in form of tax breaks) and hides the true cost of energy. We pay just 10 cents for kWh, and $3 for a gallon of gas, but the actual cost is much higher than that. The subsidies make it look cheap to drive a giant Chevy Suburban. I drive a small car that gets about 50 MPG, and I hardly ever pay anything for gas, while Douchebag Bob with Chevy Suburban gets 10 MPG and fills up a hundred dollars worth every week.... YET, I am paying a lot for gas because thanks to the subsidies, I am paying for Douchebag Bob's gas too, we're all paying for Douchebag Bob's gas. The energy industry does not need subsidies, they're already making record profits, and the subsidies hide the true cost of things.
With all the TEA party uproar about having smaller government, you would think they would be mentioning cutting billion dollar subsidies to industries that don't need them? Subsidy is corporate welfare, and the energy companies abuse the corporate welfare system. No, instead the TEA baggers just want to cut the Planned Parenthood funding, which is less than 0.1% of energy+farm subsidies.
When I say subsidy, I also include tax breaks. It's the same thing in my book. A subsidy takes money from people who have paid tax, a tax break takes money from everyone who hasn't received that tax break.
Monorail. :-p
The actual game changer is reliable public transport within ten minutes walk of where you live, that gets you to within ten minutes walk of work within half an hour that runs reliably and often. It doesn't matter if it is crammed tight like a tin of sardines, people will use it over the alternative of being stuck in traffic in a car doing a journey that takes longer and is more stressful.
Since this is the most talked about alternative energy source for a car but are we ready for that ? I'm not sure but 1 thing I'm sure is that some countries or provinces like mine are not ready. Well I'm not too positive about the idea of all the population of Quebec using electric cars. I just think about the electricity cost and what we use right now and what we will need won't be small. I fear that.
the average price per Kw/h is around 6.8. The table is here.
The company has 2.8 million customers responsible for 4.01 million residential, commercial, institutional and industrial service contracts. - Hydro Quebec
Most of the money and profit Hydro-Quebec is making is towards exporting energy. Without those exports, Hydro-Quebec would increase the price to make a profit margin. They've told that countless times in press conferences.
Imagine if the same amount of customers using electric cars on the same grid ?
I don't have the exact number but in 2011 the monthly consumption of Hydro Quebec was around ) 3,06m. Can you imagine if you put around 2-3 million cars on that same grid ? This is just a thought but I think the price will increase without any hesitation and Hydro-Quebec will force it on us. Twice a year or so Hydro-Quebec is asking the goverment for a price increase as they tell us we don't pay enough. I can imagine they will have lots of arguements to increase the price and the goverment will have almost no choice but too accept.
ps: this is just Quebec, I can imagine worst numbers, facts or stories in other provinces or countries.
interesting.
First off, I think that it will more than 1/2, more like 3/4 or more. Lithium Air batteries are coming this decade. At that time, a car like the nissan leaf will either get 500 miles to a charge, or more likely, the range will be 150 miles and prices will be cheaper than gas car. In addition, over the next 8 years, loads of electrical stations will come on-line.
Now, once Tesla is profitable (expected early next year), he is looking to walk away from it and allow somebody else to run it. So, he is focusing on another form of transportation: a rail system.
One thing about Musk, when he goes after an idea, he gets it to work.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Every car is different. In addition, in the tesla, the batteries are located in a skateboard under the car (basically, providing a nice low CG). Since this is actually a unibody type construction, doing battery changes make little sense.
As to battery costs, well, for Tesla, 20KWH is only $10K. Others are at 20-30K, but Tesla is using the lowest costs. Over the next decade, these battery costs will only drop and range will increase. Check out Lithium-Air batteries.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Personally I think by 2032 95% of all NEW cars will be electric (or some form of that). By then we'll have better charging and storage systems, the battery technologies have really taken off the last few years.. We'll also have some form of coatings on our vehicles which are like solar cells and extra energy producing components like the brakes which will also prolong the driving distance..
crappy deal for a Chevy Volt
Car pool, reusable throughout the day (not locked in a garage for 8 hours) and at night. Its like public transport but much more flexible.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
... in the increasing number of severe storms we get as a result of global warming.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I thought I was reinforcing his point. Why do you assume each comment is to refute something above?
If 50% does come to fruition who is going to pay for all the maintenance, upgrades, and construction of the transportation infrastructure?
Petroleum fuel taxes (local, state and federal taxes) make up a large majority of the funding for the projects. If people aren't buying gas this revenue stream will decline and the condition of roads and bridges will rapidly deteriorate.
That money that you have saved by not buying fuel will instead be spent on the suspension repairs and new tires required due to damage from pot holes, etc.
As a result I would expect to see a usage based road tax implemented.
Some type of system where you have to report your mileage annually and a bill is sent.
For a sustainable economy, we have to reduce our energy intake by 80%. The rest can be replaced by renewable sources. Therefore, we have to switch to more efficient public transport systems. This will most likely mean replacing cars by buses and trains. Replace long distances between home, shops and work. Replace air conditioning with well insulated houses. We do that in Europe now for some time and it has positive effects on the over all energy consumption of houses. It also works in winter, when it reduces heating cost. A well insulated home equipped with solar panels on the roof, can produce more energy than it consumes (this works in Germany, so it should work in the US everywhere).
On that basis 50% plug-ins could easily achieved by dropping regular car production, which is already happening (especially in urban areas).
We are running out of oil. We're at or near the halfway point now,
Yeah, they keep saying that about every ten years, and then they figure out more is stored somewhere, and how to get to oil elsewhere...
Basically we have an endless supply of oil, because it will easily last until real alternatives simply cost far less and use peters out naturally.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Gasoline's current problem is that while there are still improvements being made, it's not even in the same ballpark as the rate of advancement of battery technology.
The problem is that there simply is no potential in sight for a battery that can realistically do what gasoline does - 300 miles on a single 2 minute fueling, that weighs only about 20 lbs and lasts for a million miles or more (how often do you replace a gas tank?).
Batteries are great for some uses (it's just as silly to fuel up a laptop as it is to battery up a car) but cars simply are not one of them. The current electric cars are gimmicks that a struggling economy cannot afford to prop up much longer.
In the end we'll be using electric motors but powered probably by hydrogen, not clunky battery technology. It is way more likely we can solve the problems of using hydrogen as fuel than we can address all the issues batteries have.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do you have a link?
The problem with plugins, for the consumer, is not all of the usual equivocation between gas-driven vehicles. The problem with plugins is actually that they are not hybrids. There are some very real technical limitations that consumers very easily understand - mechanical problems, new technology, performance, and, at a simple level, no juice. Just look at Consumer Reports highly publicized review of the Fiskar Karma all-electric: http://news.investors.com/article/604114/201203121905/broken-fisker-karma-towed-by-consumer-reports.htm?p=full The $100K Karma with a K (which was supposed to be the all-electric sports car) died on arrival. Why would I buy a Leaf / Karma / etc., if I can do all take care of those social responsibility do-gooder things with a hybrid.
1. Must be able to feed them with grass and hay
2. They must be able to drink their water from a stream or pond
3. Must be able to travel over rough terrain without need of special roads
4. Must be able to procreate
5. Will need to be priced starting at $10
Until these new-fangled horseless-carriages can meet this criteria then there is *no way* they will ever be adopted by the masses.
50 miles of electric-only range, 250 miles+ of gas-powered range with a small, efficient, range-extender engine. The GM Volt-style plug-in hybrid is exactly the right solution to this problem.
It just needs a few more generations of refinement to reduce the cost and make the gas-engine smaller, lighter, and more efficient.
Public transport doesn't scale well to low population densities, and by trying to make it, you actually make the problem worse (running a nearly empty bus does nobody any good, and it's even worse when the bus is taking circuitous routes and constantly starting and stopping to pick up scattered passengers all over the place). The fewer people who need to go into a given area, the longer you need to make wait times to justify it, but the fewer people then who will want to do it because of the long wait times. The system just breaks down. The whole concept of "mass transit" requires that there be a "mass" of people involved.
It's great for high population density areas, though.
"/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit is a gimp plugin and must be run by the gimp in order to be used."
The problem with turbodiesels (and the reason I no longer drive them) is that in the effort to reduce emissions and increase specific power output, they are getting very complex and expensive to repair. So much so, that a turbine failure can be a lot more expensive than, say, replacing the batteries in a hybrid. Also, as the supply of natural gas replaces oil, synthesising gasoline becomes more economic than extracting middle weight oils from shale or tar sand. It looks as if the balance is tipping in favor of gasoline/natural gas.
On the second point, the Prius transmission deserves study. It has not one but two electric motors, one of which can run backwards. They are connected via a differential. The effect is that, within limits, the engine speed can vary independently of the road speed; the second electric motor spins in either direction to take up the difference. This means that the gasoline engine can run on an optimised cycle.
I have worked with straight generators, and they have several problems. The main one is, what constant speed do you run at? If it is high enough to ensure that full power is available to drive the electric motor, that reduces the life and is uneconomical. If it is run at low speed, the battery will rapidly die if high road speeds or hill climbs are called for. Constant speed generators are fine for fixed loads, or for intermittent loads with battery back up, but not good for cars which are called on to operate over a wide range of duty cycles. That, basically, is why Toyota were willing to invest vast amounts of R&D money in their hybrid design. Nobody has yet equalled it.
Among its many virtues is that peak torque is provided by an electric motor so that the gasoline engine never needs to operate with very high BMEP, which contributes to wear, it is normally aspirated eliminating the expensive turbocharger, and that there is no gearbox. To get high efficiency from turbodiesels either a manual transmission or an automated crossover gearbox is needed, ideally with a large number of gears. This adds another expensive component, so that overall the add-ons to the basic Diesel lump are more than comparable to the add-ons needed for a hybrid.
Which, basically, is why I switched. Given the choice between a VW with a 7 speed automated gearbox and a turbocharger, and a Prius, the Prius seems a lot less likely to go very expensively wrong if I keep it for a long time (and it is cheaper to run).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If anything, I think 50% is a very safe under estimate on which to base a prediction.
1. Build Cost - One look at a Tesla (real car, not schematics) makes you realize how simplified and compact the entire drive train becomes with electrical engines. You have space for a nice sized trunk in the front AND in the back. I am willing to bet there is a substantial premium on the Tesla build cost right now, which will go away in a decade. It will become cheaper for someone to build an electric car than one driven by a combustion engine.
2. Batteries - 20 years is a long time for battery technology and efficiency to improve. 20 years ago your laptop had a battery that weighed a couple of pounds and lasted 2 hours. Now it weighs a fraction and lasts 10. There's a few billion being spent in R&D in this space.
3. Distribution - This obviously has a circular relationship with demand. What it needs is an economic/profit model. 20 years is a long time for people to try out permutations and see what works.
4. Oil, or the lack there of -- At the rate at which our oil guzzling is increasing, the cost is only going to go up. There may be alternative means of extraction and processing from hard to reach sources, but there is no way a chemical technology can compete with the "silicon effect" where the efficiency of silicon based power sources goes up exponentially every few years.
5. Engine efficiency - The performance and efficiency of an electric engine can be software tuned in a very fine grained way based on live driving conditions. With combustion engines, you can switching off cylinders and vary fuel-oxygen mixtures. This helps but is much coarse grained compared to what can be done with electric engines.
What you need to consider is not the current cost and status quo but rather the aggregation of various trends. /(you may not return to your scheduled brain dead programming - so do I)
Whether Musk is right or not probably mostly depends on whether worry about global warming increases over that time period, and chances are darn good that that will happen, as the effects of the already-wired-in warming start to become more and more obvious, even to the studiously blind.
So his bet probably depends a lot on whether the US government grows a pair and institutes a rapidly escalating carbon tax, as almost everyone who actually knows anything about the GHGs and global warming problem believes is the most effective approach to getting the energy and transportation economy to turn the corner rapidly.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Argh - the top gear review is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffRagsjSpkE
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Look how fast LCD's have supplanted CRT's.
Add a little demand due to high gas prices in there and Musk's estimate is likely too conservative, in my estimation.
expandfairuse.org
If you mean half the cars in Palo Alto, maybe. But you're forgetting about China, South Korea, Japan, India, Brazil, Pakistan and all of Africa.
The only way consumers will buy an "electric car" will be if the government forces automobile manufacturers
to suspend production of a traditional internal combustion engine.
Electric, solar, wind, rubberband powered cars will only be viable, if the internal combustion engine is outlawed.
Of course, if that happens, those in power, the hollyWEIRD types, will be exempt from such rules.
That "Hyperloop" system is so far out there that most people even trying to comment about it don't even know what it is. I'm not even sure it is a rail system, or if it is that must have as much relationship to current rail transit as monorails have or even more remote than that.
The idea he expressed in the same speech about the electric turbofan seemed interesting though. The problem with an electric airplane, however, is simply getting the energy density needed to make it work. About the only thing that might work for something on that scale would be a fusion energy plant (something Elon Musk also hinted about in that same speech).
Actually, from what I can gather (talking to some friends), he is thinking of a suspended monorail running cars (not trains), possibly in a vacuum tube, though that might not be needed. BTW, look at the seraphim linear motor. The real issue is not the cost of the equipment, but the assembly/construction of it. Here in America, that is our REAL issue (labor costs).
I do not think that Fusion would be needed. Thorium is certainly interesting. The more so, for cargo and military aircraft.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Fission-based aviation was tried by the U.S. Air Force a couple of decades ago as a platform for a bomber which could stay in the air for long duration flights (a week or more of continuous flying was envisioned). Actual flight worthy test articles were developed as prototypes, including notably the X-6 aircraft that put a working reactor into the air, even though it wasn't directly linked to the propulsion system of the aircraft. The 12-ton lead shielding needed to protect the crew was a major draw back of the project.
I don't know if a Thorium reactor would do any better than the Plutonium reactor used in that aircraft, but I would suspect similar kinds of radiation shielding would be needed and would likely encounter similar kinds of problems in its development. For it to be used for passenger flight seems extremely unlikely.
As for the hyperloop, it will be interesting to see where it will go. Elon Musk announced that he will be releasing a more detailed explanation of the technology in the next few months (sometime in August was a suggested publication date). I'm sure that will be something on Slashdot when the document dump happens.
Nope. Thorium needs just a fraction of the shielding that U does. My guess though is that long term, electric planes will become the norm. Perhaps via lasers providing electricity.
Yeah, one thing I like about Musk, is he makes things happen. Hopefully, he will cause this insane attitude about twin rails to be re-examined.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In 15 years, more than half will be electric. In 20, virtually all cars will be. Musk is predicting a smooth growth curve for something which will have an outrageous knee.
Come back to this post in 15 years. Either I'll be right, or Musk and I will both be outrageously wrong.
Musk is obviously not working with a static model. Musk is expecting a disruptive technology one year that will lead to not 32% growth in the market, but more like 3,200% growth. Hurst is working with limited vision.