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I don't think there's any need for a breakthrough in order to have world wide massively adopted electric cars. The only bottleneck right now is battery product

I don't think there's any need for a breakthrough in order to have world wide massively adopted electric cars. The only bottleneck right now is battery production, not even demand. The technology is here, the demand is here, the supply chain is being adapted so that price (not weight) drops. I don't see how the weight of a car has any meaningful impact on adoption. Speaking of which, adoption is usually an S curve and I fail to see how electric car's adoption would be any different. That makes it everything but "steady" and it will take pretty much everyone by surprise, like any other technology before (computers, internet, laptops, smartphones... and petrol cars). That raises many interesting questions about the readiness of each country's infrastructure but that's another debate.

Someone 8y ago
About that infrastructure: it isn’t only about charging infrastructure. If most cars become electric cars that weigh twice as much as existing cars and accelerate much faster, wear and tear on road surfaces and bridges will go up (or won’t it? Will accelerating more smoothly offset that?) Certainly, in the USA, a country that already has problems maintaining its road infrastructure, that could become problematic.
liftbigweights 8y ago
> I don't think there's any need for a breakthrough in order to have world wide massively adopted electric cars. It's not a matter of opinion. candiodari posted the metrics just a few comments up. Gas/Hydrogen has 4 to 8X better power to weight ratios. > The only bottleneck right now is battery production, not even demand. No. It's also demand. Most people want big gas guzzling trucks and SUVs. > That makes it everything but "steady" and it will take pretty much everyone by surprise, like any other technology before (computers, internet, laptops, smartphones... and petrol cars) S curve applies to something "revolutionary" or better. Electric cars aren't better than gas cars. Regular cars are cheaper, get more mileage and are much more efficient (and powerful) than electric cars. The only thing going for electric cars is they pollute less. Smartphones did something that telephones couldn't. Computers did things typewriters couldn't. Cars did things that horse carriages couldn't. That's not the case between gas powered cars and electric cars.

Someone 8y ago

About that infrastructure: it isn’t only about charging infrastructure. If most cars become electric cars that weigh twice as much as existing cars and accelerate much faster, wear and tear on road surfaces and bridges will go up (or won’t it? Will accelerating more smoothly offset that?) Certainly, in the USA, a country that already has problems maintaining its road infrastructure, that could become problematic.

liftbigweights 8y ago

> I don't think there's any need for a breakthrough in order to have world wide massively adopted electric cars. It's not a matter of opinion. candiodari posted the metrics just a few comments up. Gas/Hydrogen has 4 to 8X better power to weight ratios. > The only bottleneck right now is battery production, not even demand. No. It's also demand. Most people want big gas guzzling trucks and SUVs. > That makes it everything but "steady" and it will take pretty much everyone by surprise, like any other technology before (computers, internet, laptops, smartphones... and petrol cars) S curve applies to something "revolutionary" or better. Electric cars aren't better than gas cars. Regular cars are cheaper, get more mileage and are much more efficient (and powerful) than electric cars. The only thing going for electric cars is they pollute less. Smartphones did something that telephones couldn't. Computers did things typewriters couldn't. Cars did things that horse carriages couldn't. That's not the case between gas powered cars and electric cars.