Indeed. It’s still somewhat of an open question whether you can have robust EV demand growth past the “early adopter” phase in the absence of significant government intervention. The current slowdown in BEV/PHEV demand growth in Europe has been driven, in no small part, by Germany’s withdrawal of their previously-generous EV subsidy program. That led to a 12% reduction in EV sales in Germany (even higher in BEV’s) YoY.
Combine a slowing of government subsidies with the fall in oil prices discussed in this thread, and you could very well see the pullback that Goofy discussed upthread.
Each were supplanted slowly and individually, and none of them had sufficient political power to stop or even slow the transitions. Real estate agents do have sufficient political power, so they are among the last to go.
Blockbuster literally “laughed” at Netflix when it was suggested they buy them when they were tiny.
Again, they had insufficient political power to do much, though near the end they mounted a brief campaign against Amazon books. Yet, Amazon still sells way more books than anyone else.
Car companies and the associated unions across the world still have lots and lots of political power. But it is diminishing over time and you can’t fight the forces of nature. EV is a better solution for most mobility and will eventually win out.
Remember encyclopedias (now Wikipedia)?
Remember $50 to trade a stock?
Remember snail mail to get a credit card statement vs instant fraud alerts?
Remember sending a post card when on vacation?
Sadly, remember not having to wade through hundreds of spam emails per day
Disagree. The infrastructure needed to switch to EV is huge. First of all there is no battery technology for that scale, and the electricity requirement will be higher 50% ~ 75%. I am not sure the world is prepared to build so much capacity in the next 10, 15 or even 20 years.
Lot of things need to change. EV’s will continue to grow, but completely replacing ICE is at least 2, 3 decade away in developed world, and may be even further in developing world.
Where did you get that number?
First of all residential electricity usage is about 20% of total demand.
The average home consumes about 1000 kwh per month.
If every household owned an EV and drove it 12K miles per year (1000miles/mon) that would require about 333 kwh (based on 3 miles/kwh which is low, most get about 3.5 or 4)
So that would be 33% increase in household usage or a ~6.6% increase in total.
Of course some households have multiple cars and some businesses will drive EVs as well. But it will take many decades to switch over just one car per household.
Battery costs are going down. Energy density is going up. Its happening.
Tesla Model Y is the highest selling car in the world.
Upcoming Model Y is rumored to have 500 miles range.
Buckle up.
I don’t believe that rumor. If they can get 500 miles out of an 82kWh battery, the better choice would be to use a 60kWh battery instead and get 365 mi range. And price it ~$2000 lower (assuming they pay about $100/KWh for their batteries). Very few people need 500 mile range, so why make everyone take (pay for) that capability?
I very highly doubt it. That’s simply not the Tesla way. I suspect they will keep their current type of lineup for their mid-range vehicles, a standard range at 200-250 mi and a long range at 300-360 mi.
The “range extender” thing for the cybertruck really surprised me, and I’m still not convinced that it will ever ship in any meaningful volumes.
I’ve written similar a number of times. It’s an odd thing that I don’t understand at all. How does it connect to the battery cooling/heating system? How will it be managed during charging? How will it be managed during discharging? Seems like such a kludge to me.
They offer a standard range and a long range today. Are you saying they will offer a third option of “super long range”?
I don’t think so. Like someone mentioned above, they would rather have the car be less expensive than to have 365 be the standard range. The only time that’ll ever happen is after batteries become so inexpensive that they aren’t 20+% of the total cost. If a 365 mi battery is 10% of the cost of the car, maybe they would opt for that as “standard” range.
I have not seen the video, but inconsistent from what I heard on the conference calls in Berkshire to utility companies to Research notes. I would highly recommend listening to Berkshire annual meeting where they talk about the need for investing in grid infrastructure, the challenges. They are talking about decade plus sustained investment…
