bgum wrote:
The ICE is on its way out just like the horse was. There will be a few around but it will be few for special purposes.
EVs will remain niche vehicles for a long time. The question is how big with the niche be.
- A lot of delivery trucks run very predictable routes with limited miles and return to a storage yard every night (think UPS truck). These are in the early stages of change over.
- City buses (not long haul/tourist buses) these typically operate at low speeds where wind resistance doesn't eat into their range and you can fit massive battery banks under the floor. Add in regenerative braking and again, you have a predictable number of route miles and a home base they go to each night to charge.
- Long haul trucking, tour buses, etc..., they make money by eating up miles. Sitting for an hour or more to recharge doesn't cut it.
Similarly with cars, multicar families can afford to keep one car dedicated to commuting, so converting that to EV is easy when you have an ICE powered car ready for big family trips. That could get you up into 30-40% of cars sold.
Plug-In-Hybrids are a big missing piece of the puzzle. This allows you to plug in and get pretty much all of your commuter miles as battery/electric but when you have a long trip, it seamlessly kicks on the ICE and you really don't even have to think about it. This also addresses the battery supply problem that will kick in if we ever get over 1-2% of production as EVs.
