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Yeah, that seems like a rather optimistic (from the oil industry's perspective) projection that electric cars will be adopted gradually. Seems more likely that
by elihu 10y ago
Yeah, that seems like a rather optimistic (from the oil industry's perspective) projection that electric cars will be adopted gradually. Seems more likely that there will become a point when electric cars are better/cheaper than gas even for low-end vehicles, and then from then on there's no reason to keep making gas-burning cars except for specialized purposes.
One argument in favor of a gradual transition though is limited battery supply. However, if there's a market for more cells, I don't see any reason to expect that the necessary factories won't be built.
- ZeroGravitas 10y agoNot only will electric cars reach parity for new cars, it seems likely there will come a point where even buying an old second hand vehicle will be uneconomic since the primary cost will be fuel. This will tank the resale value of ICE cars, making them competitive again, but the process will continue.
- elihu 10y agoYeah, I think the used marked for ICE cars will be with us for a long time. There will always be people who need a car and don't have the savings to buy a new one, and if used ICE cars are cheap people will continue to buy them and drive them until they aren't worth fixing. So, there's probably a ten or twenty year lag between when ICE cars are no longer worth making and when ICE cars are no longer widely used. (Some googling led to a claim that the average car life expectancy is about 8 years and 150,000 miles. That seems low to me, but maybe I'm biased by having owned long-lived reliable cars.)