Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point?

HughPickens.com writes: Geoff Ralston has an interesting essay explaining why it is likely that electric car penetration in the U.S. will take off at an exponential rate over the next 5-10 years rendering laughable the paltry predictions of future electric car sales being made today. Present projections assume that electric car sales will slowly increase as the technology gets marginally better, and as more and more customers choose to forsake a better product (the gasoline car) for a worse, yet "greener" version. According to Ralston this view of the future is, simply, wrong. — electric cars will take over our roads because consumers will demand them. "Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy," says Ralston. "The Tesla Model S has demonstrated that a well made, well designed electric car is far superior to anything else on the road. This has changed everything."

The Tesla Model S has sold so well because, compared to old-fashioned gasoline cars it is more fun to drive, quieter, always "full" every morning, more roomy, and it continuously gets better with automatic updates and software improvements. According to Ralston the tipping point will come when gas stations, not a massively profitable business, start to go out of business as many more electric cars are sold, making gasoline powered vehicles even more inconvenient. When that happens even more gasoline car owners will be convinced to switch. Rapidly a tipping point will be reached, at which point finding a convenient gas station will be nearly impossible and owning a gasoline powered car will positively suck. "Elon Musk has ushered in the age of the electric car, and whether or not it, too, was inevitable, it has certainly begun," concludes Ralston. "The future of automotive transportation is an electric one and you can expect that future to be here soon."

Comments

quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[AttillaTheNun]

At least that is my hope. The concept of car ownership is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

The service model can be readily adopted in cities where shared car usage already exists in the form of taxis or uber/lyft/etc.

In the suburbs, people tend to allow their cars to accrete items which are useful but not something they'd carry daily if they didn't have the capacity of the car. For example, look at minivans or CUVs - there's usually various child-centric paraphernilia stored inside, or a bag with blankets and jackets. The convenience factor of having these non-essential items along in a private vehicle makes the service model a hard sell to suburban consumers.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you enjoy having the service track everywhere you go and when you do so, so they can sell it to marketers.

Car ownership is a form of freedom from those who control other forms of transportation, and I'd hate to see that go away.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Jason Levine]

We've owned a home for 11 years now. (Yes, in NY.) There are definitely days where I see something's broken and I wish I could just call the landlord, say "have this taken care of", and not have to worry about the details. Then again, when we were living in our apartment, our rent would increase every year and our landlord would blame the repairs he had to make. "The central air conditioning system was broken and needed to be fixed so your rent is going up next year." (As if leaving everything broken was a valid option and he was doing us some big favor by fixing what broke.)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[TWX]

Heh.

Hiring a car makes sense when one does not use cars very often.

Subscribing to a car service without personal ownership makes sense in some conditions, like high-density urban areas combined with relatively open travel requirements and for those that do not want to keep a given car for a long time.

We own. We keep cars for a long time, are particular about our cars, and it's less costly for us to own than it is for us to lease. We live in a single-family house on a plot of land, so we have room to park. Our jobs both have room to park. There are no toll roads around here either. Most of these things would not change even if we had autonomous vehicles. It also doesn't snow/rust here, so cars can reach 20 years without needing any body/chassis service if the suspensions are not abused.

I could see someone living in urban New York or Chicago or Boston or San Francisco subscribing to some kind of car service; if their work hours are stable and if the service can always have a nice clean sedan ready for them when they leave for work in the morning and can get a sedan to them in the afternoon or evening quickly after being summoned then it would work.

One model isn't going to work for everyone. Stop trying to assume that just because something works for you, that it would work for everyone else, or because something doesn't work for you, that it wouldn't work for any large portion of the population.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[toadlife]

It won't be the government that pushes people towards autonomous cars. It will be insurance companies.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't be the recession that we've been suffering through for the last 8 years.

Or the increasingly reliable nature of vehicles in the past 30 years.

Or the higher cost of vehicles driven by crazy Government mileage requirements.

Nope, it has to be because everyone wants to be some communal hippy living in dense housing and riding stinky buses.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Ytsejam-03]

I hope you enjoy having the service track everywhere you go and when you do so, so they can sell it to marketers.

You mean like carrying a smart phone?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

It is interesting to note that the average age of cars on the road in the US now is at an all time high. The "pundits" wring their hands trying to discover the cause of this "anomaly", when anyone with half a brain knows the answer:

Yeah, the answer is that cars today are more reliable than they were 30 years ago (all of those advancements in automation and testing), and it's not uncommon to see a car last to 200k miles with minimal issues (as opposed to the 50k that something built in the 1960s would expect).

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

If you don't like car payments, then don't finance it. Car loans are, for the most part, a pretty dumb financial decision. It's an item that loses value over the duration of the loan, has a high potential for the value to drop to zero in an instant due to circumstances out of your control, and (assuming you're not in a dense urban environment) is something that has to be replaced asap in the event that it's wrecked. All of those factors mean that you've got a high potential to wind up owing more than the car is worth while simultaneously having to replace it (therefore risking the same situation in duplicate).

A much better choice is to do your homework and decide on a 2-5 year old model with high reliability (there are tons of readily available metrics for this), then pay cash for a low mileage used one. Half the cost of a new one (so less pressure to finance it), and it'll last 10 years if you actually take care of it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ChrisMaple]

The concept of car ownership is archaic.

Young men are surely going to impress their dates when they show up in the modern equivalent of a rusty self-driving Pinto. For extra points, the last user was hauling dead fish and cow manure.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[MozeeToby]

At some point, the freeway system will go autonomous only with no set speed limit. That will be the day the last non-autonomous, non-just-for-fun car gets sold. When you can hit the freeway at 120mph, getting nearly the same gas mileage as today thanks to drafting, no one is going to want the alternative.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Yunzil]

No. I don't want a self-driving car. First, because I'm one of those weirdos that actually enjoys driving. Second, because I suffer from motion sickness if I'm in a vehicle that I'm not controlling. And third, I'm a software developer and therefore have no faith in software. :-b

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Pascal Sartoretti]

It won't be the government that pushes people towards autonomous cars. It will be insurance companies.

To be precise : it will be the lower price of insurance policies that will push many towards autonomous cars.

However, smart insurance companies will see this as a dangerous erosion of their market, and will probably fight against this...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[__aaclcg7560]

What's next - the "archaic" practice of owning your own home?

You never really own your own home. If you don't pay property taxes, the local government will foreclose and sell the house to someone else. If that person doesn't pay property taxes, rinse and repeat.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ExekielS]

Service models are pretty much universally converted to consolidated markets which extract rents from whatever economy you live under. The more poor people are, the more they use service models, and the more those things cost. A tv via. Rent to Own is 100x+ more expensive than just buying a tv, renting a place to live is universally paying far more for a lot less and by the Iron Law of Rents, extracts all disposable income from a community possible. Transportation, durable goods, network connectedness all come with the same dangers. Not only that, but the ownership comes with rights, so those who aren't owners have all their rights removed and given to those they purchase services from. You can drive a car in your boxers but if you do that on the public transit here you will be literally shot by the police for your wicked crimes. You can smoke, grow food in your own home, apartments can prohibit you from doing that, they can even tell you how to dress in your own home. You become a slave when you have to submit to paid usage of others services when there isn't enough market competition to guarantee your freedom or when all market players have equal restrictions. We need to tax rents on land and exclusive access rights in order to guarantee people's freedom and individual liberties, but that doesn't do enough, we also need a massive increase and expansion in people's guaranteed rights in various public situations and for renters. Until that day comes, the more we move to a service model, the more we move towards a horrific dystopia that haunts my deepest nightmares.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Taxman415a]

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

I'm sure that's partly true, but I would bet it's more due to the fact that cars last longer than they used to. It used to be relatively rare for a car to drive 100,000 miles, but now for many cars that's their first scheduled tune-up. If cars weren't lasting longer it wouldn't matter if people were sick of car payments, they'd still have to buy another one when their current car broke down. Yes and there does seem to be some evidence of particularly younger people choosing to live closer to work where they can bike and walk to work, but it's certainly not as big a factor (yet) as cars lasting longer.

The future will be driverless cars, mass transit and bicycles in urban/suburban areas.

That's probably true. Though bicycles may never catch on in the US the way they have in Europe and elsewhere. The car lobby and car culture in the US has been successful at limiting the options for biking.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Lynchenstein]

Do you have kids? Being a parent of a toddler or even a kid up to 5 or so means you have to have a Boy Scout mentality. BE PREPARED. Toting around a few extra pounds of stuff (change of clothes, snacks, first aid, entertainment) is worth every extra joule it takes to do so.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

I own a home, but don't own it as an investment. When I inevitably dispose of it, I won't make any sort of return on that home; in fact, homeownership will be a financial loss--possibly even a loss compared to renting, although it'll likely be some small gain. Homeownership gives me more temporal control over my finances, however: I've invested quite a lot of money into small returns, such that the amount of money I must spend month-to-month is lower.

If we could get an interest rate market around the 14% mark, homeownership would easily be an attractive option, since you could spend very little to clear your debt. At 2.5%, a home with a payment of $1180 requires an extra $500+/month to skip a payment in the very early months, and more as you get deeper into payments, with the total interest paid at around $26,000; at 14%, a home with a payment of $1180 comes to the same projected total cost at the end of a 30-year loan period, but allows you to skip early payments with as little as $18 additional payment. If you raise your payments by $150, that 30-year loan at 14% interest becomes a 15-year loan, saving you $162,000 in interest--more than six times the total interest cost of the same home in a 2.5% interest rate market where buyers can afford (and do pay) much higher sale prices.

In the end, a house's investment return is a gamble at best, and one that doesn't really work out unless general market interest rates are high when you buy and suddenly drop just before you sell, ratcheting the sale price of your house up extremely high. What we need most is financial education in the next high-interest-rate market, creating a cultural habit of 15- or, better, 10-year mortgages, where people reject the idea of banker fiefdom for 20-30 years. Even if your home is a complete write-off, hitting an age of 30 and realizing you suddenly have $1500-$2500 more to spend every month creates quite a different economic climate--both in your personal finances and in the wider market.

I'd make one hell of a banker, but I decided to go economist on that front. Bankers obviously want people to go for long, high-balanced loans; as an economist--as *the* economist, since I've developed a formal economic theory which unifies and correctly explains all current theory--I see the great value in accelerating and strengthening the wealth cycle. The mortgage market behaviors I've described don't really make banks (much) poorer--in fact, taking the full function of banks into account, they probably only reduce the proportion of bank income from consumer mortgages, and increase its income in business loans and other consumer loans--but they leave more residual wealth in the consumer's hand, creating market opportunities for businesses to sell more goods and services, thus creating demand for new labor.

Even automation would only cut production costs, having the same effect--unfortunately, at an excessively high rate, leading to a serious economic disruption that would require several decades to heal in exactly the same way--with an interesting difference in that you'd need much less new labor to produce new products, and so would produce a much greater volume of new products and services to capture that residual wealth, so long as dynamics of competition come into play (fortunately, competition can be outside market: does the consumer want your overpriced diamonds, or my overpriced cakes? Perhaps one of us--or both of us--must reduce our prices to come closer in line to our actual costs, slimming our profit margins while still retaining a healthy profit... no guarantees there, though).

I'm sure you can imagine why, while I want to protect the income of businesses and high-earners (meaning I'd like to minimize any new taxes), I'm also chiefly concerned with maximizing the wealth of consumers. Many of my economics policies proposals focus on reducing labor costs, increasing income security, and doing so with little expansion or, interestingly, a reduction of total taxes necessary to fund these new sy

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[zlives]

"The concept of "Being a parent" is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of "Being a parent" in favour of a service model." :)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

Your advice made sense years ago; these days it does not. 2-5 year old cars with low mileage don't cost much less than brand-new models these days, unless it's some unpopular model (and they're unpopular for a good reason). If the model is popular and well-known to be highly reliable, it'll keep its resale value very well, making it much less worth it to buy used. Also, $15k in cash isn't that easy for most people to come up with on the spot, so most people have to finance. You don't get 0% interest rates on used cars; the rates are much worse. In fact, those low rates are reserved only for people with a good enough credit rating.

Today's crappy economy and ultra-low interest rates have made it so that buying new really makes a lot more sense than buying used.

In addition to this, brand-new cars have much better safety ratings than even 5-year-old models. You're going to fare much better in a crash with a brand-new model that got top scores on the IIHS crash tests than in anything made a half-decade ago. You seem to be worried about risk, from your line about the potential for value to drop, but you're totally ignoring the risk to your health and safety by driving an older model. 50,000 people die every year in the US alone in auto accidents; you could be the next one.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tlhIngan]

The future will be driverless cars, mass transit and bicycles in urban/suburban areas.

The sea change is already happening - car ownership of all kinds is lowest among millenials. In fact, having a driver's license is no longer the rite of passage it once was - there's a growing group of millenials who do not have a driver's license and have no intention of getting one. Granted, they're generally limited to areas with good public transit, but the car as a form of status symbol no longer applies.

And public transit, especially subways and the like, often get people around faster than being stuck in traffic. (The daily grind of traffic jams will rapidly wear down even the strongest driving advocate). And we know this because distracted driving is either #1 or rapidly becoming the #1 cause of accidents (drunk driving is/was #1) - because driving is boring and horrendous.

Heck, some employers have reported difficulty recruiting people because of the commute. And what was once a good idea to move to an industrial park where land is cheap and you can stuff people in like cattle, businesses are finding that they need to be more urban to attract employees who don't want, or can't, do the commute and want to be close to amenities.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[BasilBrush]

Yeah. And my grandfather insisted on carrying a pocket watch. All you are describing is conservatism related to technology. Such technology adoption issues are solved by the turnover of the human population.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[fahrbot-bot]

The concept of "dating" is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of "dating" in favour of a service model -- oh wait...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

I drive a 16 yo minivan with ~125,000 miles and it is basically "like new" from a practical perspective. It did once have a plugged fuel injector, a dead battery, and a small hose leak. The hoses were ready for scheduled replacement anyway, and the battery was 6 years old. The injector cost $65 to replace, and I was still able to drive it slowly. New cars can get plugged injectors, too. It was plugged the next day after driving 250 freeway miles with 30 city miles and frequent stops in the middle of that, on a hot day. That happens at any age.

It may sound old to some people, but it has electronic throttle control; all I have to do is floor the pedal and I'll accelerate right on the power curve automatically, no wasted revving. Works great with a $12 bluetooth ODB-II reader, too; I can view all the engine info from a smart phone. Any replacement part can be easily obtained from chain parts stores. Any repair or diagnostic will have a youtube walk-through. Not that it breaks down.

The anti-slip does both anti-lock and also anti-slide on ice, with the same processors. It is front wheel drive, but I can drive over a solid sheet of ice and slam on the brakes and stop in a few feet. If there is 8" of powdery snow that slowly forms an ice layer and eventually turns to slush over 2 weeks, I can drive during every stage of that, with regular tires, and never slide around; even freeway on/offramps are fine on ice-covered with powder. I slide a tiny bit, but control is maintained during any slide, so I'll slide a couple inches and correct. All because of a tiny microcontroller in each brake.

I'd love cruise control that can match speeds when behind somebody without cruise control, but that is luxury stuff. There is not much at all that a new car could offer that my used car doesn't already do and isn't available after-market. If my car was 5 years older, I'd have a giant laundry-list of desired features, most of them related to the computers and interfaces.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Wycliffe]

But you're also making the case for how absurd it is that people use additional energy (compounded over several million vehicles I bet it ads up) in the form of gasoline to always carry around stuff they only sometimes need.

The whole system is designed for people having stuff "they only sometimes need". Most commuters only need a single seat and a 20 mile range but they keep the 4 seat SUV with a gasoline engine so they can take the family to the lake once a month. It's not just cars. Most people have a "guest bedroom" and additional extra rooms in their house that are only used occasionally. It gets even worse than that, how often does someone actually use the ladder, extension cord, etc... that's hanging in their garage. I doubt that in an average city that more than 1% of ladders are being actively used at any one time.
The "parent with extra crap" stuff is actually easy to solve. Just get a large duffle bag with all the stuff and throw it in the trunk when the car shows up but there is a ton of "extra capacity" everywhere in modern life. I would venture to guess that if we could efficiently distribute items only when needed that we could reduce our consumption of things like shopvacs, ladders, ext cords, by 90+% because a vast majority of the stuff in the average house is not used on a daily basis and some of it sits and rots for months between uses.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Funny, for all those "crazy Government mileage requirements", I find that the cost of new cars has generally risen at slower than the rate of inflation, even as they offer more features, better reliability, and (thanks to said mileage requirements) lower fuel costs.

Case example: My parents bought a Geo Prizm LSi (also marketed as the Toyota Corolla) back in 1990. At the time, it cost ~$12.3K. It was much smaller than the current Toyota Corolla, the electrical system sucked (adjusting the power windows dimmed the headlights and radio), etc. The LSi add-on features (power windows) are all standard now, the MPG has gone from 21-22/26-28 MPG city/highway under the old system (that rated all cars better than what you'd actually get), to 27-29/36-38 MPG under the new, more realistic rating system (and remember, the car is actually bigger now than it was), which reduces your fuel costs by a third or so. Yes, the cost is up, between $19.5K and $22K for most models (remember, the 2015 low end model is still better on features than the top end model of 1990). But that $12.3K from 1990 is ~$22.4K in 2015 dollars (according to U.S. Inflation Calculator). So the price actually dropped in inflation adjusted dollars, while the car got bigger, more efficient, and got more "luxury" features.

Remind me how big bad government mileage requirements are making cars so expensive?

Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Sir_Eptishous]

I have a relative who is a part owner of a truck stop. I have heard how low the profits/margins are for selling gas. He tells me all the profit at those places is from the junk food inside... Apparently the deals they make with the gasoline/diesel suppliers are so bad there is almost no profit in selling gas.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[BasilBrush]

I've heard similar. Likewise there won't be much to be made on EV charge points. But they will be more likely to sell food whilst an EV is being charged.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[DigiShaman]

Randomly, the pump will display "please see register for receipt" upon selecting the print option. I've see it being random as the person after me (a friend), had his receipt print just fine. It's a fucking scam to lure people into the store and buy shit.

Doubtful

[Snotnose]

EVs cost significantly more than gas cars, don't have the range of gas cars, and apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight.

A friend has an electric, she loves it. She also drives 20 miles to work, charges the car in her garage overnight, and her road trips are with her kids and grandkids, who drive their gas vehicles.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

There's no point listing the cons without listing the pros too. EVs are nicer to drive, cleaner (in all senses), often have a lower total cost of ownership, need far less servicing, and you can make it's fuel yourself at home.

Re:Doubtful

[MobyDisk]

At present, the TCO is about the same because the lower maintenance and fuel costs are offset by the increased up-front cost. And that is with the government tax credits included. A search for electric car TCO gives dozens of articles that seem to corroborate this.

In the long-term, I believe the TCO of electric cars will probably become lower. I'm betting that electric cars will last longer, the maintenance curve will not increase as the engine ages, and that green electricity sources will widen the gap between gasoline and electricity costs. But at some point we will lose the tax credits.

Just so no one thinks I'm cherry picking my search results: Here are the first 6 Google hits (other than PDFs) and they all agree:
http://www.plugincars.com/tota...
http://www.pluginamerica.org/d...
http://tdworld.com/site-files/...
http://www.greentechmedia.com/...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/to...

Most of the results are tepid, arguing things like "hey, electric cars are NOT actually more expensive" or "well, it's about the same long term." but are hesitant to declare a clear winner.

Re:Doubtful

[Sir_Eptishous]

need far less servicing

This is the big one.

Electric cars will be commodities like pc's and phones. Gone will be the days of thousand and thousands of dollars being drained away from car owners doing repairs, etc;

Mechanics, oil change places(Jiffy Lube, etc) will go out of business once the threshold is passed.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

On what basis do you make the claim that they are "nicer to drive?

On the basis that everyone that test drives one says the same thing.

I'll put a BMW M3 -- or if you prefer a soft ride a Rolls Royce -- up against a Nissan Leaf any day.

The fact that you have to compare cars from such different classes makes my point. A Tesla is nicer to drive tham an M3. A Nissan Leaf is nicer to drive than a Nissan Versa.

And you have it completely the wrong way around on snow handling. EVs are out in the snow when ICE cars are stuck. It's the low end torque and the extra weight. Don't bother arguing the point, you'll find out if you google.

Biofuels are irrelevant (except for pork barrelling). Virtually all ICE cars run fossil fuels. But when I said in all ways, I clearly didn't just mean the global warming effect. I meant more generally that ICE cars are oily, sooty things.

Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Schezar]

The move to electric is a natural evolution, and will have a significant impact. The economies of scale in terms of pollution mitigation at power plants will utterly dwarf anything cars have ever been able to do themselves, transmission losses nonwithstanding.

Even if they only displace urban drivers (fewer per-trip miles, more population density facilitating more charging stations), the impact will be transformative. Watch the AQI loop around New York, and you can see air pollution rising and falling along the commuter roads into the City in lock step with the morning commute. I can't even imagine a New York with 50-80% fewer gas-powered cars on the road.

But that's still just evolution. Electric is just a natural step.

Driverless cars are the revolution. Electric makes existing car use patterns better. Driverless makes an entirely new paradigm. It may eliminate mass car ownership. It might eliminate parking lots. It might eliminate light rail in suburban areas. Taxis. Deliveries. Shipping. Police reponses.

Electric makes things better in well-projected ways. Driverless changes everything forever in ways we can't yet even imagine.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[es330td]

The problem with battery power is that as a mobile storage device it absolutely sucks compared to liquid hydrocarbons. Diesel has an energy density of 35 MJ/L. A rechargeable lithium ion battery has a density that ranges from 0.9-2.63 MJ/L. If advances in technology doubled capacity and then double it again it would still only be 1/3 as good as diesel as a storage medium. Making matters worse, the individual batteries used in a Tesla weigh 2.64 kg/L, where Diesel weighs 0.899 kg/L. Even if the battery had the same energy density it would weigh three times as much. (Yes, I know the diesel engine has mass for which I didn't account. I am only pointing out the energy sources themselves.) Musk's plant may be able to bring down the cost to make a battery but scale doesn't make the battery itself better. I can also say with a high degree of confidence that if this much money is being sunk into a lithium ion plant then no significant alternative is on the horizon, unless the whole point of the factory is home batteries, not car batteries.

Proponents keep saying that advances in battery technology will make them competitive with hydrocarbons. What they don't say is that in a world wherein a 5% improvement is a big deal the advances required exist in the realm of science fiction.

How do they fare in colder climates?

[gaudior]

How reliable are they in winter driving conditions? How is the battery efficiency affected by temperature? What about cabin heating? I'm having a hard time seeing any of the current crop being adopted for year-round use in areas that get more than a smattering of snow, or a few days below freezing per year.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[bledri]

How reliable are they in winter driving conditions? How is the battery efficiency affected by temperature? What about cabin heating? I'm having a hard time seeing any of the current crop being adopted for year-round use in areas that get more than a smattering of snow, or a few days below freezing per year.

Does Norway count as an area that has a few days below freezing per year?.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Guspaz]

Tesla has been very successful in very cold climates. They'll sell you the cold-weather version. Range suffers a bit, but not dramatically. Anecdotal evidence indicates 10-20% range reduction for very cold temperatures. The batteries aren't a problem because they would get very hot if they weren't actively cooled, so they simply need to be cooled less, and they need a bit of heating when you start.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[iONiUM]

What the hell are you talking about? I live in Canada, and where I am our winters average between -15 to -30, sometimes -40 on a bad day. Last winter, on all of those days, I saw Tesla's out in full force, including my friend's. It's already proven to be fine. Stop spreading FUD.

Is the battery life not as good as it is in "nominal" (it has problems with very hot temperatures as well)? For sure. Is it unusable? Absolutely not. You can even tell it to start heating from your iWhatever device before you ever get in (or A/C, for that matter).

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[swv3752]

The Volt has a pressurized fuel compartment, so the gas is good for up to a year, and the computer in the car alerts you when the gas has not been used and to turn on the engine.

In the US.

[lorinc]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work. It is just impossible until you can refill your car in 5 minutes like with gasoline...

Oh, and many Europeans travel 1000+km on a single streak with their cars on holidays. Again, if the cars you want to sell have to wait 2 times 4 hours to refill in such travel, you're not going to sell many of them.

Ecars are good for commuters that live in houses. There are not many of them outside the US.

Re:In the US.

[bledri]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work. It is just impossible until you can refill your car in 5 minutes like with gasoline...

That's not a long term issue. See (pdf): Electric vehicles in Europe: - McKinsey & Company

The EU’s Clean Fuel Directive, as proposed in January 2013 and being discussed in EU Parliament in March 2014, sets a target of 800,000 publicly accessible EV charging stations to be installed throughout Europe by 2020 – with individual targets being set for each member state. This requirement for publicly available charging infrastructure recognizes that many EV owners, especially in cities, will need to rely on access to charging stations in collective parking lots, at apartment blocks, offices, or business locations, and suggests that member states focus on charging station density in urban areas.

Oh, and many Europeans travel 1000+km on a single streak with their cars on holidays. Again, if the cars you want to sell have to wait 2 times 4 hours to refill in such travel, you're not going to sell many of them.

Ecars are good for commuters that live in houses. There are not many of them outside the US.

Auto ownership has probably hit it's peak, self-driving cars will make the expense of individual ownership less and less appealing in general. And owning an ICE for road trips is ridiculous. Just rent the car.

Batteries

[willoughby]

Some folks believe the key to Electric car adoption is better batteries. The Powerhouse by Steve Levine follows the quest for better battery technology. It's not written as well as it might be, but it's still an interesting read...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/...

Many gas stations to close?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article, many gas stations will close once 10% of cars are electric, to the point of inconvenience.

Bullshit. I drove a vehicle with one of the most damn inconvenient fuels out there: Propane. In my province, 0.2% of vehicles run on Propane. In my city are alone (population: ~500,000), there's still 4 fueling stations and I'm never more than 15 km away from one. As I said, it is inconvenient because if you're not somewhere populous, it's rare to find somewhere to fuel up, especially in the US. But it was far from "sell it right now!" levels.

And that's with just 0.2% of vehicles using a particular fuel. At 90% I would expect my average drive to refuel for my gas powered vehicle would go from perhaps 2 km to 2.1 km. Wake me when we hit 30% of cars on the road being gasoline powered, which would make the amount of gas sold equal to the amount of diesel sold right now. Those with diesel cars *STILL* don't worry about being able to fill up, despite being at that level of popularity. I figure when gasoline cars hit 5% it will actually require some small amount of planning to refuel. That's a LONG way away.

Quite a few obstacles remain.

[nimbius]

Living in Los Angeles, the age of the electric car has been upon us for quite some time. everyone from BMW to nissan makes popular electric cars and sells them for a reasonable price here. The problem comes when you aren't in the second largest city in america.

During a business trip to an office in Ohio I learned firsthhand how awkward it must be to own one of these vehicles. In Blue Ash, Ohio I saw one or two teslas, but Ohio doesn't have a tax incentive like Los Angeles gives people to buy them. So, owners in Ohio aren't exactly the average joe. It seemed a status symbol, as though they mostly buy the car out of a desire to be perceived as 'elite' and progressive. Charging also seemed cumbersome. In LA we charge at parking garages for low cost, or free. most employers offer ChaDeMO charger stations as a perk in their garage. taking your car into the shop? its charged when you get out. Finally dedicated charging ports at some gas stations are also prevalent. None of this infrastructure existed in the cities I visited in Ohio because none of it had to. Gas was $3 a gallon, or less. Traffic was smooth flowing and quick, and mileage largely adherent to highway driving conditions above 50 miles per hour. There is also no public transit, no park and ride to charge the car at while you commute the rest of the way in by light rail.

Ohio also has winter weather to contend with. Most people owned larger SUV's or cars with all-wheel-drive in anticipation of snowy or icy roads, and temperatures well below those we're accustomed to in southern California. The car has to warm and cool much more actively, which im not sure is something electric cars can handle.

Disclaimer: I own a tesla. owning it in the midwest would seem to be a chore.

Problems can be solved

[sjbe]

EVs cost significantly more than gas cars, don't have the range of gas cars, and apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight.

All of which are solvable problems. With scale EVs eventually could be cheaper than gas cars since they have fewer parts. There already are EVs with range competitive with gas cars (see the Model S) and they are only getting better. As for apartment dwellers, eventually apartments will end up providing charging infrastructure though I fully expect this to happen late in the game because the cost isn't trivial.

Electric vehicles will probably reach a tipping point when either A) recharge times get to less than 15 minutes with a 200 mile range or B) EVs with a 500+ mile range are developed and economically feasible. Until that happens we'll see hybrids serving as a technology test platform until such time as the battery technology matures sufficiently. I fully expect most luxury cars to be plug-in hybrids within the next 10-15 years. I think you'll start to see semi trucks and long haul vehicles becoming hybrids with a power train similar to locomotives (diesel with electric motors driving the wheels).

EVs won't reach the tipping point tomorrow or even probably 5 years from now but I do think they are the likely future with hybrids being a stepping stone to get there.

Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[sjbe]

And frankly, current ranges on EV's make them pretty much useless for trucks. Who really wants to stop for a couple hours a couple times a day?

You won't see pure EV trucks for a long time. What you'll see is a power train similar to that on locomotives. Diesel engine charging electric motors with a battery bank to deal with the excess. It's very efficient, huge torque and the technology is well understood. I'm kind of surprised we aren't seeing it already.

Re:Error 1

[Macrat]

But why would I go to my local gas station in the middle of suburbia to charge my vehicle when I can just charge it at home?

Because "home" is an apartment or condo and there are no charging stations in the parking lot.

Re:Efficiency

[TheDarkMaster]

At night? Of course. Better yet, at some time between midnight to 7 am. Why do you ask? The power grid capacity is sized for peak hours as there is usually no way to store the electricity generated by big power plants for later use. These peak times occur as people leave home and when they return from work. When everyone is sleeping that generation capacity becomes idle, and then It can easily be put to other uses.

Disclosure: I am a developer, but also a power plant technician.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Have you not heard of "gimbals"?

Re:AYFKM?

[sl3xd]

The important question is: How often do you actually drive far enough in one day to drain the battery and need to recharge away from home.

I know in my own life & commute, the answer is "not at all" - being able to gas up on a long trip just isn't a use case. On the other hand, with an Electric, never having to stop at a gas station is a big advantage/selling point.

Batteries are becoming cheaper very quickly with cost parity expected in less than a decade. The ability to charge faster is also improving dramatically, so those disadvantages of electric cars are rapidly vanishing. It's already a lower cost per mile to drive electric, and maintenance costs are lower on electric cars compared to cars powered by ICE's.

I suspect for an increasing number of people (especially those living in cities or suburbia), the advantages of electric cars will soon be more than sufficiently compelling to warrant a switch to electric.

"Green" has little to do with it. Convenience and cost per mile are big advantages of electric vehicles.

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

Yes.

As far as efficiency, you fell on your face. Sorry man. The 35% for the car is the engine. That's the max possible, real IC engines in consumer cars are closer to 25%. Your novel idea that that is higher than electric cars get is funny, but no. Also, battery charging using the battery technologies already used in cars is closer to 85% in the worst case, and over 90% average. Nobody is building cars with lead acid. And "battery discharge" is not 75%, the average is over 90%. 75% is the lowest efficiency, which you get briefly at the end of the cycle when the battery is already charged and you're only using a tiny bit of current to top it off. The main part of the charge that uses most of the power is at the higher end of the efficiency range for the battery. You're whacking battery efficiency down twice with made-up numbers and pretending to be science-y.

Battery charging efficiency is actually near 100% below 70% charge. Remember, you're not doing much work here, physically. There is no reason to desire there to be an extra loss here. ;) Discharge loss is also normally only a few percent, not 25%. Almost all the losses in your "equation" are from made-up numbers that are nowhere close to reality.

Fuel cell storage efficiency is only 20-60%. No surprise, because hydrogen atoms are larger than electrons, and so filling up the cell requires vastly more physical work.

Flywheels are super-heavy. The funny part about what you say there is that small flywheels used the same way as electric regenerative braking can increase fuel efficiency in a city, with frequent start/stop, but the mass of flywheel you'd need to be useful at a 50+ mile range would be really heavy, and have huge friction losses. It can be done, it has been done, but you get a slow tank that is inefficient, not a fuel-saver.

Not having better numbers is no excuse for just making them up as if a guess what you use when you can't be bothered to look any of it up, and don't already know about the technologies.