The Hurdle for Electric Cars
They make it sound is if the biggest issue is the infrastructure, but it isn't. As they note about 2/3 through, the real problem is the cost of the cars themselves! Customers not in the upper income bracket opt for cheaper cars. This isn't rocket science people, it's economics.
Or the infatuation with the military-industrial complex...
Or the constant earth-worship...
Or the "sudden revelation" mantra that people just need to open their eyes...
or...
The lithium batteries, after their road life is done, still have enough charge capacity that they can be used as a power source. If you're interested in "off the grid" housing, you can get used lithium car batteries cheaper than lead acid, and they still outlast a new lead acid in a home power system role.
A well designed electric vehicle is easy to maintain, and cheaper to the buyer in the long run. Fuel costs are only part of the picture, as maintenance on a gasoline or diesel vehicle run higher than a pure (not hybrid) EV. When you do a cost analysis, figure in the cost of oil changes every 3,000 miles, plus things like periodic maintenance on transmissions and other items that don't exist on an EV. The problem is that most companies manufacturing electric cars are trying to get designers who are mentally tied to gasoline vehicles, and the result is often unsatisfactory, expensive designs. Like every other attempt at radical change, it will take some time before we see a real winner of an electric vehicle.
Any industry that relies on subsidies shouldn't be in the business. Sooner or later some innovator will figure out a way to build electric vehicles that can compete in the general market, and that's when we'll see more EVs on the road.
My original analysis factored in original (subsidized) purchase price, electricity for charging vs gasoline (using California prices for both), and routine maintenance (which is needed even on electric vehicles with the exception of oil changes). The cost of changing out those batteries ($10K every 75000 miles) was a killer when factored into a vehicle life of 250K miles. I did not include catastrophic things like total engine failure, complete transmission replacement, etc. because normally you'd just junk the entire car. And in that analysis, you still came out more than 10K ahead by buying a gasoline-powered vehicle. That didn't even address the range issues of electric cars.
"Sooner or later some innovator will figure out a way to build electric vehicles that can compete in the general market, and that's when we'll see more EVs on the road."
Very likely, yes. Until that happens, however, I'm going to stay with the tried and true.
If it doesn't "Sound" like a well tuned, healthy V8 with standard shift...I am not interested. It's just no fun at all to be quiet!
Where do dead batteries go? While I've heard environmentalists touting recycling, they'll have to charge for it (pun intended) as they'll have to deconstruct the battery to do this. It isn't as simple as replacing the chemicals.
Will they run after an EMP is less of a stark comparison, as no vehicle built from the 90's on with electronic fuel injection will be running either after such an event.
"If it doesn't "Sound" like a well tuned, healthy V8 with standard shift...I am not interested. It's just no fun at all to be quiet!"
I read a study where drivers testing the first electric vehicles were extremely uncomfortable driving them because they were too quiet. The engineers actually had to engineer in artificial engine sounds to comfort the drivers.
There's been some concern that pedestrians wouldn't hear the sound of an approaching EV and get hit, but in checking this out, the EVs produce a distinct turbine-like whining noise that's often louder than the engine noise of a modern gas powered vehicle. Both types of vehicle have a sound profile dominated by tire noise.
You must only drive luxury vehicles, as the engine noise (within the cab) in all of my vehicles is quite noticeable even at idle. And engine noise during acceleration is noticeable in nearly every vehicle - including luxury brands. Those were the sounds test drivers were most missing in the study. What they realized was that it was a feedback mechanism for vehicle speed so the driver didn't have to constantly check the speedometer.
I'm not overly concerned about the pedestrian argument. The Mark I Eyeball should be the primary warning sensor there.
Back in my Fathers day, (1920s),at the CS Monitor news paper they used electric trucks that could go from Boston to Providence RI and back on a charge. That's 100 miles. Most electric cars, today, are lucky if they can double that reliably.
If I got a car, I would consider electric with the idea that it's close to carbon-neutral because all my electricity at home comes from renewables. My gut feeling, though, is that storing that power in chemicals in batteries will always be inefficient. I could be wrong as the technology scales up.
I agree with the OP, though, that if the cost doesn't come down, electric cars won't make sense. We could just take that extra money and buy offsets. It's hard to tell how the technology will evolve.
If the growth of electric sales in china were placed on the chart with all car sales, it would hardly be visible. Since the all sales units are 20 times as large as those of the electric sales.
The same type of trick is usually done in climate graphs comparing solar output units with infrared output from the Earth. They show the graphs next to each other so that they look the same, but the solar graph should be one million times taller. There is a bit more about the graphs put on the same graph which due to atmospheric absorption so that the IR curve is not completely under the solar plot. Like with the car plots, it is a little bit dishonest.