Groover wrote:
My son has a Model 3, a Nissan Leaf and electric yard equipment. He used to fly RC helicopters competitively and we witnessed the transition from liquid fuel to batteries in the area. He does not expect to ever buy another ICE. I have an assortment of battery powered tools, including a string trimmer and a chainsaw but haven't gone in whole hog as he has. He drives the Model 3 on the job covering a 3 state area and is very happy with it. Between the large battery, the Supercharger network and being able to charge at home and some motels he never feels constrained. On the other hand, the Leaf barely gets his wife to work and back every day. Charging it away from home is a nightmare. Still, very low maintenance is a huge plus for the battery powered vehicles. I am not ready yet to go all electric. I have kept my old liquid fuel powered chainsaws and string trimmers for tougher jobs and will consider hybrids for my next vehicles.
The point here is that battery powered devices are gaining traction and growing market share rapidly. Do batteries work in some applications? Absolutely and they are getting better every day. Are we ready for 100% battery power? Not in my book but 10 years from now I expect them to way outsell ICE engines with ICE engines filling some niche markets, marine and aviation. Meanwhile, a lot of work has to done to supply all that electricity, lower the cost and build thousands of charging stations.
So to answer the question, I think that it is happening now and picking up speed rapidly. Just think about the explosion in battery powered hand tools in the past 25 years. Cars are where hand tools were 20 years ago. But, I do expect to see ICE engines hanging around for quite a few more years, at least in some applications. Just like hand tools.
Great post, but I don't agree on the the fact that BEV's will outsell ICE in ten years. Sure, our current energy infrastructure can probably be able to handle 10% or 15% market share (it is currently slightly over 2%) depending on where you live. However, I don't think it can handle much more than that in the next ten years.
It would require a lot of new energy sources, rebuilding old lines to handle added load, and charging stations at just about every parking lot. What makes this an even greater task is the fact that all this has to be done by seperate entities that have different budgets, different interests, and different views on the best solution. Fifty or sixty years maybe, but not ten. I could be wrong, but the odds of getting all this together in ten years to be able to have EVs take over 50% of market share is very low.
