I saw a slashtard writing about this - it stated that just as cars were unreliable at the start of their life but eventually replaced horse and buggy, so goes electric as well.
What slashtard didn't point out was automobile was a lot easier to use and offered a faster, better experience over horse and buggy - and you didn't need to feed the car every day regardless of if you used it.
Some of the oldest electric cars are over 100 years old now. This is not really a new technology but just a poorly understood and implemented one. The majority of the world cannot use electric vehicles.
Not everyone lives in a city center in a wealthy country with a power grid that can supply millions of EV's with the power they need to move. Not only that.. Most 1st world countries cannot do that either. The grid's of today are not designed for this load and they are unable to provide for it.
It is fine to look to the future for technology but what is being done via governments around the world is just making things worse and will set back adoption by decades at best.
At one point I thought it would be nice to have a EV. I did a lot of research and decided I would rather not have a car payment, pay ~30-50$ at the pump (depending on gas prices) and have a over 300 mile range in less than 6 minutes.
Not only that. I can work on my own vehicle without the company voiding the warranty.. (over a cell network no less), not that I would care since its well past that age. A "major" fix might cost me up to $3k. With an EV a similar fix would cost $30k+. Nope. Not interested.
Electric cars were abandoned in the early 20th century for the same reasons we can't really work with them today:
- Gasoline has an easily available and storable energy density that outstrips most other energy media.
- Range is severely limited both due to the amount of charge, charge times, and facilities to charge.
- A gasoline engine is useful in all but in severe extreme conditions, whereas a cold winter kills a battery.
Price is also a major factor, but I would assume that yesterday's electrics probably weren't a lot more expensive if at all than a comparable car of the age - but I have not researched that.
None of the problems listed above are insurmountable, but you're absolutely right. Clutching at your pearls and pushing electrics is going to do the same thing for electric cars that GM did for diesel cars - it's going to leave a bad taste in Jim Consumer's mouth that may never go away.
(post is archived)