It's a shame these financial press editors are so naive. I'm an electric transportation fanboy. I'm a Tesla Motors customer and I have a photovoltaic array on

It's a shame these financial press editors are so naive. I'm an electric transportation fanboy. I'm a Tesla Motors customer and I have a photovoltaic array on my roof. I've done these things because I'm an early adopter, not because they're even marginally cost effective in 2017. The economics aren't happening for an EV tipping point in one decade. Certainly not in the vast US. Why not? Because: the places people in Sili Valley call "flyover country." Because: utility companies. Because: recharging time. Because: infrastructure. In the US, we have our own kind upper class twits (cf Monty Python). Many of them live in Sili Valley. The guy who wrote this study is a candidate for that honorific. EVs require widespread charging capability. I'm lucky. I own my own house, and I had the money (til I spent it) to upgrade my electric service and get my 40A charging port installed. It cost money, and it leveraged resources (house, driveway) I already own. The charging rate at 40A is about 26 mph: one plugged-in hour gets me 26 miles of range. It all works for me: it's my car, and I sleep. Still, a fossil-fuel vehicle can take on a full load of fuel in a few minutes. What about apartment dwellers? There may be a few apartment developments offering charging ports. But not many. It's costly to add that stuff. Tell landlords they have to install charging ports at the rate of one or two per apartment, by 2022. Let us know how those conversations go. It's true that car charging is a time-shiftable load, so it won't require a lot of extra peak-load generation capacity. But for time shifting to work at scale we need to persuade the electric utilities to implement some sort of "smart grid." It takes years of regulatory battles to do easy stuff. And the "smart grid" is hard. Tell the legislatures, bought and paid for by big companies, they'll be compelling utilities to adopt smart grids in five years. Let us know how those conversations go. OK, OK, those things aren't important, because robot uber. Because of self-driving hired vehicles. Visit Ohio or New Mexico. Tell the third-shift nurse she'll be taking cabs to work from now on. Tell the electrician who rigged my 40A port she won't own the van she drives to work sites, and won't even control it. Let us know how those conversations go. Telll robot uber's investors they have to pony up the capital for all those robot taxicabs, and the insurance costs for operating them 365 days a year rain or shine, sleet or snow. Let us know how that conversation goes. Yes, electrified transport is the future. Yes, peak oil will look like declining oil prices and gas stations getting steadily shabbier as demand dries up and margins get thinner. But is it gonna "tip" by 2027 in the USA? no. In Norway and Singapore? Maybe.