What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

> If you think people make reasonable choices, I have some sad news.

They make their own choices. It's not up to us to patronisingly decide what's reasonable for them, as long as what they do isn't destroying society itself.

> And like you mentioned, it is faster than commuting by car.

That's not always the case. I live in a large city (1.9 million people) with one of the best public transport systems of the world and depending on where you live, it's faster by 30-45 mins to drive than to use public transport to some other part of the city,

People like me prefer to have time to use as we please rather than strangers to stare at. So we drive when we save time, or when it's raining or when many people are sick and cough at everyone. Unreasonable?

> an amenity which is often needed to get a job, but also ties people up in debt from loans and maintenance costs and insurance costs and registration costs and parking tickets and parking lot fees and traffic tickets, making it harder to make a living.

So does public transport by costing tax money and therefore putting pressure on governments to increase taxes.

> You're saying cars should be made cheaper, of course, but this is absolutely ridiculous.

Please don't make up stuff.

> There is no indicator at all that cars in this market will get cheaper any time soon.

EV will.

> People are idiots, and we should not define the terms of our society based on their whims alone

Exactly my point, the question is: who's the idiot? The one who forces people to cut down on their lifestyle choices (soon we'll have to go vegan because of the societal, environmental and moral cost of meat, right?) or the one who opts for freedom of choice and technological progress to make more choices sustainable?

Biggest problem I guess will be expanding the charger network, simply due to physics.

On the country side, laying cables for 1MW peak load (4 superchargers @ 250 kW) will be expensive - the grid in rural areas is enough for some farms and small villages, that's it.

In cities, electric-car chargers will have to deal with political obstacles (no one wants to sacrifice free-for-all parking spots!), in addition to the electricity problem - while in a city there might be more available 10+ kV lines (you don't want to do 250 kW over 230V AC, it's over 1k A current!), sidewalks are often enough very slim as it is and it will be difficult to get a charging station installed there, and digging in earth filled with cables is not exactly fun either (been there, done that, it's manual work of the worst kind as you can't even use a proper showel...). Getting chargers in garages will face obstacles of the HOAs, plus the house uplinks usually are without much reserves - my 12-apartment house, for example, is linked to the grid on 3x63A with each apartment (~60 m2) being fed by a single 40A phase. Not much, certainly not enough to feed even two electric cars in the backyard.

Either way you'l have to rebuild the entire grid more sooner than later if electric cars should have a future... there's not enough money to rebuild Detroit's water, where should the money for a full scale grid rebuild come from? It's all decades old infrastructure, no matter if in the US or Germany. Replacing or significantly upgrading it means billions to trillions of dollars.

Nuclear wars would mostly involve thermonuclear weapons detonating high enough up that their neutron flux will essentially dissipate before reaching the ground where all the cars are. That will maximize the area destroyed by the shock wave.

It's true that a neutron bomb used tactically against ground targets could transmute car batteries. But those would tend to be used in the countryside against armor formation rolling through rather than against cities where all the cars are. And they have a fairly small radius of effect anyways.

EDIT: And in any event, I'm sure that the transmuted cobalt will be the least of our problems if it ever becomes relevant.

That is definitely relevant, we don't know how much day-to-night load shifting will happen. On the other hand, there's also the probability that people who find themselves needing to charge during the day will often need more time than a gas fuelup would take, making them more likely to buy something. It's hard to predict what will happen of course, but those shop owners are going to fight to stay alive.

Georgia (USA) had a very lucrative EV tax incentive: US$5000 on a purchase or lease. The city of Atlanta is perfect for such vehicles: commute under 50 miles, desire to mitigate smog, temperature conducive to good battery performance. Result was a lot of people (myself included) leased a Nissan Leaf for 2 years at practically no cost[1]. This jumpstarted the EV market, persuaded installation of a LOT of chargers, and persuaded many people that EVs are a desirable option (if a bit more expensive up-front).

Eventually demand for the tax credit got so high, and revenue from gasoline taxes dropped enough, that the state dropped the incentive - going the other way even, charging a straight-up $200 annual tax on EVs for road use. The market for EVs evaporated (understandable, because no more free-for-2-years cars). The ripple effects from the artificial demand being abruptly cut off will affect the EV industry for long: people found them desirable, but expect them cheap.

I expect the EV market will eventually happen. They're very nice cars, and starting every day "topped off" is very convenient. Battery technology has progressed well, with enough money & interest to see it thru to seriously competing with petrol.

[1] - The net cost was $zero + upgrades, but it did require considerable cash flow to pull off: you had to lease a $36,000 car and get your credits at tax time - possibly years later. Atlanta has a good confluence of incomes, high-tech interests, and weather facilitating this.