[Note: In a previous thread I referred to my prediction of 50% EV penetration, but realized this post never made it to the thread. So belatedly, I add it here.]
Goofy, I get the feeling you still use carbon paper and rent VHS movies. You have to admit the transition to EVs is happening a lot faster than people envisioned just 10 years ago.
Yes, it is. That said, my pessimism is only limited to the rosy and overly optimistic (in my view) predictions of the enthusiasts, not that EV’s will not have a place. (Heck, I have been to more than one showroom to look at them for my personal use.)
I think the iPad is a reasonable example here. I recall when it came out how it was going to replace everything. All the desktops would just fade away. I remember seeing a couple of salespeople at Sears (!) walking around with them in their hands, not really knowing what to do with them. [Only the Apple Stores have managed to lose the big checkout register/computer.] As it turns out, the iPad is a wonderful tool, I have multiple in various ages, but they have not pushed out my desktop nor are they likely to; it’s a branch extension, not a replacement for the entire tree. Sales leveled off more quickly than early predictions said. They certainly have not replaced the desktop in corporate America, and I predict they won’t for many years if ever.
I also suspect that EVs will hit a top penetration much like the iPad did sooner than the evangelists think. There are some things I’m not comfortable predicting, but if you held a gun to my head and said “market penetration?” I would guess 50% plus or minus before leveling off absent some macro event like the government commandeering all petrochemical supplies for military defense against China or something.
I believe the “future bans” like California will be upended by reality, and the car company predictions of “no future ICE vehicle production” will be retracted by sheer survival necessity. There are just too many situations where EVs don’t work as well as ICE vehicles.
It took Boston 40 years to rip up all the broken sidewalks in Back Bay and rebuild them into something nice; it seems unlikely that they will do it again so quickly to install EV street chargers for college students to drape cables across the bike lanes to charge their generally already beat up Toyotas. Or the young professionals in Allston, Brighton, Cambridge, et. Al. Apartment buildings may begin to offer EV charging as an amenity - but not until they have to, which will take a while. It’s a chicken/egg thing, which doesn’t mean it won’t happen, it means it isn’t a smooth glide path to completion.
On the side thread, “fully self driving” won’t have to be perfect, but it will have to be a lot better, I mean massively better than humans’ driving. Every self driving accident is going to be covered in the news, as it should be. Successful trips will go uncovered, just as regular commutes are now, only the accidents get on the news. Regulators will be slow to embrace Level 5, as they probably should be. It’ll happen too, just, you know, slowly.
I will be joyful at the existence of it, should it happen in my lifetime. I hope it does, but the clock is ticking.