Acronyms ICE: Internal combustion engine EV: Electric vehicle AV: Autonomous vehicle Given that majority of people detest driving in the contexts of traffic, expensive payments/maintenance and environmental effects, does anyone think that ICE cars could be sought after in a future where most everyone has transitioned into economy class EVs and major traffic issues are alleviated? It's pretty clear to me that for comfortable/utility type transportation EVs are definitely a great solution once infrastructure is in place. Additionally, the whole push for AV development is an underlying theme in the "I hate driving" sentiment. I know that these transitions will likely take decade(s) but does anyone feel like this is similar to the transition of film to digital photography and the progression from records -> cassette -> cd-> mp3/iPod? There are people today who go out of their way to appreciate these older mediums which I can somewhat appreciate as well. In a similar level, I love the character and the imperfections of the vibrations and rawness of my ICE sports car when I'm cruising on Skyline and the great roads outside of the urban Bay area. The howl of an inline-6 is something that an EV could never do despite being strictly better in all major engineering specifications. I've driven today's EVs and think they will be the future but they seem very sterile and filtered like photoshop and mp3s compared to film and records. Will there be a place for any ICE cars in the future or will it strictly be EVs? TC 180K 2 YOE
There'll be a car club or collector registration permit, which will be cheap to have, but get very expensive the more you drive it.
You can drive a single car tens of thousands of miles for every jet takeoff or mile of diesel electric train. EVs pollute more than ICE vehicles in many states, because you’re charging them with coal fired generating plants. Your efficiency is a fiction. Yes it will get better over time, as did ICE.
That and all the battery cells from each EV (that doesn’t burn down). Is there any serious plan for recycling these? And by serious, I mean something that doesn’t get dumped into rivers or deep holes. I know I sound pretty cynical right now but the true is that I want EVs to work and want our future to not be about burning anything shit.
That's probably only true for <30 million people because power plants have much higher thermal efficiency than cars. Tldr even coal plants are efficient because they are big. Cars are relatively small so a really fuel efficient car engine is still only 35% efficient tops. Your fear mongering has a sliver of truth in it, but it sounds right only because you're saying the simple part and ignoring the important part.
The analogy to cassette vs MP3 is irrelevant. Personal mobility is much more critical than entertainment. A huge portion of the economy is based on that. Keep in mind the biggest draw to MP3 is piracy of music. Replicating digital music library is a few clicks compared to weeks or months of dubbing. EV does not offer that much difference than ICE cars. In the end, it is about how affordable and how convenient EV will be to operate. Also, there has to be money to make so that it will scale up. At the moment, it is still unclear when we will see more EV than ICE vehicles. The world is much bigger than San Francisco. What happens in SF does not equate to the rest of the world. I bet we will see more commercial EV (delivery trucks and semi trucks) before we see more EV sedans. Everything pollutes. The least polluting mobile solution is walking or biking. The economy does not run on saving the earth. It runs on profits and scale. On the other hand, I do think flying cars as the next frontier.
The main driver for the “push” towards EVs is the manufacturers themselves. Part of this is due to blowback from Dieselgate. While this is always spun as car companies wanting to “save the environment” (overlooking the true environmental cost of batteries), the truth is that EVs have the potential to be much more profitable than their ICE counterparts. The cost to engineer, manufacture, and service/warranty an EV is significantly less due to a reduced number of moving parts. Secondly, the need for multiple powertrains goes away. Now, manufacturers can simply alter the number of motors in a vehicle to meet the desired use case. Autonomous/Shared cars also provide for another alternative revenue stream that wasn’t possible under traditional sales models. Why floorplan a car to the dealer (and maybe finance it to the end user for a fixed term) when I can rope the end user into a perpetual payment under the auspices of “simplicity”. Or, better yet, I can charge them on a per use basis and mask the absurdly high costs with countless “micro transactions.” The truth is, legacy automakers are afraid of being left behind in the technological sense and simultaneously can’t back away from what might turn out to be a lucrative business mode. Outside of dense urban areas, I’m still not sure if any of this will reach anything close to singularity within the next 25 years.
I would hate to see EV only manufacturing without proper infrastructure
Regulations will probably ban ICE in a couple decades in most developed countries. Fully developed AVs are still light years away.
Today, Manufacture of EV cars far outweighs any savings in carbon footprint. So buying more EV cars equates to more carbon. Kind of a bummer. The best thing to happen from pandemic was that less cars in total, were manufactured and average age of vehicles on the road went up.
I meant carbon issue with mining, transport, and manufacture of batteries is much larger carbon issue than any positive environmental gains. So if you are considering EV for "green" reasons think again.
There are a ton of studies on this and they show that EVs take more carbon to build but within roughly 30K miles they have a smaller carbon footprint than a different car. If you want to go green you can also get your own solar to ensure the power in your car is renewable which makes the carbon payback even faster
Personally I can’t give up ICE, though I’m sure this sentiment is only true for people who are car enthusiasts. For people driving Civics and Corollas, the only barrier to an EV future is price. To me, EV can’t compete with gasoline range. The ability to quickly fill up is not something people may want to give up. I personally don’t see the appeal of a car with a range of about 300mi before charging. And furthermore I only say this because I frequently travel between NJ, NYC, and Boston. I also take road trips and even a trip to Canada would be a pain in an EV.
If your a car enthusiast wouldn’t you want the speed that comes with EVs. They have much better performance than ICE. As for the range you can easily go fro NYC to Boston on a 300 mile take and if you’re going up to Canada just recharge when you’re getting lunch. That small nuisance is definitely offset by the fact that normally you can recharge in your garage rather than going to gas station and you don’t have to do a ton of maintenance such as changing oil or belts
Car enthusiast are more about feel. It’s why you get debates over trivial things like manual vs automatic transmissions. It’s also why the Mustang Mach-E gets so much hate even though its performance is decent. In the end car enthusiasts thrive over these seemingly nonsensical vehicle qualities. It’s also why EVs are probably going to become super mainstream once their price drops — because 99% of people who drive don’t care about the minutiae regarding ICE vehicles. Regarding road trips, it took me 7h straight to drive to Canada from NY, this would not be possible in an EV. The charge time would add unreasonable overhead to the trip and we would have to plan around charging time. Again, convenience is key. For me, unless the EV tech comes to a point where u can fully charge in under 10 minutes, it’s just not practical enough to be useful. For people who see driving as a necessary evil, this type of thing doesn’t matter. A 10 minute trip to work isn’t really any different inside a Camry compared to inside a Tesla. On the other hand there are those who enjoy driving and the vehicle they choose to drive definitely would be a big factor in enjoying that experience. Source: I drive a 2020 Mustang GT 6MT :)
It is still "economical" to drive a Prius that gives 50mpg compared to a Tesla / equivalent EV today. The future is EV as the economics and technology is getting better every year but it is not quite there yet. There is and will be a place for ICE vehicles until the economics make it impossible ( more gas taxes, new emission norms) The AV product already exists today, it's called an uber with a driver. It performs better in all aspects of a service, it will get you to the location faster and will drop you exactly where you want to be dropped. The question you need to ask is, will you sell your car and use an Uber for everything ?
Tesla vs Prius depends on how clean your electricity is. If you mostly get power from coal the Prius will be cleaner if you get it from solar the Tesla will be cheaper. With that said it’s not really a fair comparison given the tesla comfort and speed put it in the BMW class of cars which have way higher carbon footprints
Eww no ICE cars thanks.
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Probably not after the Motor Laws. https://youtu.be/FAvQSkK8Z8U