Unlike the predictions bing made when this thread was started and are still being made, batteries are not falling dramatically in price and neither are EV's. Many of the EV's predicted to come out this year have not and I would further bet many won't.
And to clarify the question, NO, an Ev is not a Hybrid. You can't have an each way bet and champion the cause of EV's when they still have an IC motor. That's a cop out and not one that's going to be accepted. The EV crowd want to go with the no emissions and all that, stick to it. You can't call something with an IC motor an EV because it will still use Fossil fuel, need oil changes and all that which the EV lovers carry on about is such an advantage of EV's. Pick a side and stick to it.
With the way the world has been affected by the [ covid-19 ] with economies destroyed and national debt skyrocketed and millions unemployed, I cannot for the life of me see people in sufficient number going out to buy new cars that are in so many cases Double the price of their EV equivalents. In recent times the Biggest buyers of EV's here have been virtue signalling companies and gubbermint departments. The uptake in the private sector has been nothing like it was hyped up to be. Predictably.
Last year the local council announced the purchase of a number of all electric Garbage trucks. That has quietly been dropped now when it was found that there were problems with them ( lack of range) as well as a cost the council could not justify and I suspect this was in part due to the [ covid-19 ] downturn in revenue. My inside info tells me a decision on what they are going to go with has not been made but if it's not electric it has to be the good old reliable Diesels.
I was looking at this again just the other week. While it is possible on a limited amount of vehicles to do my regular 400KM trip to my fathers place in an EV, it's not possible to do it with a trailer as I often do in the one 4 hour stint as is always done. Usually I have dinner with him and leave at about 7 or 8 Pm and am home before mid night.
With the majority of EV's here, all but a couple far as I know, it's not possible to do this. The ones that can do it are over $120K here.
I can get in any Sub $20K car and do that no problem.
If I want to take a trailer, I'm in for a day trip well and truly not an evening one. The only chargers on the way are relatively low powered so I would be in for a 2, more likely 3 hour wait just for a top up to make it all the way. Many of the charge points on the EV charging websites are normal 2.4 Kw outlets like in any household and they can easily be a 12 Hr Full recharge.
The problem with using EV's as runaround/ Commuter vehicles here is still the price. I believe the starting option is around $35K.
Don't know about other places but not many people here pay that for a grocery getter. The work/ second car is usually the old car or a used one, not a new one worth 35K. Maybe Aussies just aren't as well off as others.
That being the case, it's hard to make the argument for a lot of people as using them as city cars especially when city cars are the most likely to get hammered in car parks etc which is another reason the lesser car in the household is used and the " good" one kept at home and for holidays.
And a gain, as a consequence of the [ covid-19 ], with OS holidays being predicted to be unavailable till at least Christmas and the opportunity being taken for holidays at home to revive the suffering tourist industry, a lot of people are going to be looking for range to meet their all round needs. Just registering and insuring a car here to sit around is VERY expensive and not in the financial ability of the main stream household.
One of our motoring organisations took a Tesla some months ago on a test towing a caravan. Upshot was they got 160 KM here and the thing was down to 20% charge. As they were going inland, chargers were far and few apart and mostly 3 phase outlets in Hotels or local show grounds. Even this very environmental biased organisation conceded that it was not practical to use an EV for a caravan holiday and complained they couldn't see things changing for some time to come. Up and down the main highway between the capital cities all on the coastline for half the country, maybe but for the rest..... unlikely in the distant foreseeable future. Even where there are Chargers, I think many of the gray nomads are going to be VERY reluctant to stop every 90 Min for an hour to get anywhere. Going 2 houts and stopping no more than 30 Min will be the absolute limit.
I can't see much more range being built into anything remotely affordable to the mainstream that what is in a Tesla already AND.... If you do put a bigger battery in to get more range you have a longer charge up time which evens the actual distance travelled per our out. There will always be a limit of how much power you can belt into a battery in how short a time as well.
I had an interesting conversation with an energy company manager 2 weeks ago at my fathers place. I commented about how all the solar input had actually turned peak demand from the power companies to night and that from their perspective, off peak was day. He said yes and they were looking to revise their rates to reflect exactly that. He said with all the rooftop solar and that from solar farms, the demand on the grid was less as was the demand on the coal and gas power plants. He said they were going to make daytime the cheap time for power and Night time would be more expensive. This is already in the works.
I noted that this would undermine the whole EV position of drive the car to work during the day and charge cheaply at night.
He agreed that the gird was no where near up to the demands of the predicted EV uptake although did not believe the EV predicted numbers either.
He pointed out that the power co were now looking at taking more people offgrid themselves. He said as well as remote properties ( classed as more than 6 Telegraph pole spans from existing lines) being cheaper to put on a solar / battery system with a monthly fee to the power co ( hate to think what that would be!) they were also looking at the same thing for homes in the new estates that were popping up all over the country areas where power had to be brought in from afar,
This again would not bode well for EV uptake. I know where some of the places he was talking about are and they are at least 25 Km from the main town. That means any travailing is going to be a lot further than in the city and having to supply your home and vehicle from solar would be a hell of an ask. The other thing is as I was talking to my father about today, the area has so far had 2 straight weeks of overcast weather. I didn't ask if the power co system included a generator for backup but I'd guess it would probably not.
The reality is I just can't see how the EV fleet is going to work here. Between the price, the shortage of power already that is making the headlines, limited range and application, the touted benefits are more theory than practicality. In countries that are all Hydro or Geopower and average travel distances might be shorter and the population far more dense, yes. Over all though, they are not going to make EV's a majority of vehicles other than just in some small parts of the world.
Add in the world wide economic downturn predicted and right now my bet of EV's being a SMALL minority of the vehicle fleet over all in 50 years let alone 20 is looking pretty good.
I also have another bet that Tesla will be no more ( as in not what it is now) that still has 3 years to run. Happy to put more money on that too. They might exist in name as a tech company, they may be bought up by a major ( doubt it!) but I'm still very confident they wont be what they are and certainly not with musk as the ring master. The share price is pretty good over all atm so the tesla believers should take the opportunity to cash in on their faith and belief in them with me now.
Funny, so far I haven't been able to get one single person to take me up on this bet despite how many tell me I'm wrong, an idiot or whatever. Lots of talkers, no one prepared to back it up.
There are 2 More problems I see with the EV uptake.
As recently well demonstrated, The price of oil is largely inflated and not at all related to manufacturing cost but based on a " What the market will stand" Pricing structure. Should EV sales ramp up to any significant levels, the oil companies whom will want to keep profits up will simply lower the price of FF so as to make the savings of an EV less and the choice to stick with an IC vehicle much easier.
For a good deal of the market, particularly in the US were so many seem to want to haul loads with them everywhere they go, the problem of towing range that is non existent with IC cars again will make the choice of an EV even if greatly improved that much harder and the fuelling price narrowed.
Our main motoring organisation whom is always trying to talk up EVs has put their money into charging stations. They are already saying they are free now but will not be in the future. Clearly there is going to be profit to be made in EV recharging and those that think it's going to be cheap forever and these Big Biz companies are going to leave money on the table I think are kidding themselves or very naieve.
And the main hurdle I see with the EV uptake is Technology. 20 ( or 18) years is a LOOONG time in progress. I think it entirely possible that something else comes along that will stop EVs and the related problems and change over from ever becoming anywhere near the dominant Motivation. I don't think it will be Hydrogen because in the big picture that's is an efficiency and handling night mare as well as having range problems, but I think there is every likelihood something else will come along that is better than electric. Better may be just more profitable for big biz and gubbermints but that's enough for something to become the dominant mode of transport.
Blow the time line out to 50 years and it's even more likely that we will be Teleporting things and people around and vehicles as we know them won't even be made. There would be endless upsides to that Tech so it's definitely in with a chance in my book.
Whatever else they come up with in the mean time could go from discovery to mainstream in 5 years.
Tech is literally moving at the speed of light these days and won't take long for anything to be quickly rendered obsolete.
