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I think this overlooks several key facts. 1. Poor countries cannot afford the EV infrastructure. As Africa gains in wealth it is absolutely going to rely on ga

I think this overlooks several key facts. 1. Poor countries cannot afford the EV infrastructure. As Africa gains in wealth it is absolutely going to rely on gasoline engines, the government stability is not there to allow for a wide spread EV charging infrastructure. Plus EV is far more expensive putting it out of reach for emerging economies. 2. You are overlooking the power of existing industry. Natural gas has massive lobbying power vs electric and solar and is seen as 'greener' than coal. It is also easier to retrofit existing power plants to natural gas from coal than to build massive solar fields keeping jobs at their current locations. 3. You will have distributed "grids", where many more people are generating their own power, and borrowing from their neighbor when necessary - see the above point. Entrenched industry, lobbyists and industry capture are working hard to prevent this, at least in the US. Laws already exist in many states to prevent this. Use of combustibles is only increasing: https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-data.html https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-da... I would love to transition to a green, renewable infrastructure but unfortunately I don't think it is going to happen for a very long time.

WorldMaker 7y ago
> 1. Poor countries cannot afford the EV infrastructure. As Africa gains in wealth it is absolutely going to rely on gasoline engines, the government stability is not there to allow for a wide spread EV charging infrastructure. Plus EV is far more expensive putting it out of reach for emerging economies. On the flipside, poor countries with less sunk infrastructure costs in place have more raw capability to leap frog on infrastructure evolutionary steps. There's no reason to run copper telecom lines to bootstrap fiber telecom lines if you are building from scratch today. There are developing nations with far faster internet speeds than the US average because they don't have miles and miles of copper to replace. Just as you accuse the previous poster of ignoring the power of existing industry, the same applies in the other direction to poor/developing countries that they have fewer existing industries to side-step in a bootstrap process. A lot of people may not appreciate it yet, but EV infrastructure has less bootstrap costs than gas infrastructure. A lot of industrial nations have already invested so much sunk costs in gas infrastructure it seems cheap as free or magic, but gas stations don't build themselves and gas doesn't magically show up at the pump. The bonus that EV infrastructure is concomitant with Electric Grid infrastructure means that poor countries need only "one bootstrap" rather than "two" to get a strong renewable (distributed) EV Grid. EV infrastructure is almost a two-for-one deal with Electric grid infrastructure. It's a lot cheaper than reliable gas infrastructure, especially when you consider the overlap with other electric grid needs.
elihu 7y ago
I think it's likely that basic electric vehicles will soon be cheaper than basic gas vehicles. Right now, batteries are the biggest part of the cost (if you want long range), but they're getting cheaper all the time. If you're optimizing for low cost and mass production, you don't need rare-earth permanent magnets in the motor or battery chemistries that require cobalt. Power grids may be a problem, but it's possible to solve in a decentralized fashion by installing solar panels and/or wind generators near the place where the car is being used. Right now, solar is more available to wealthy people, but there again costs are coming down and in many cases solar is cheaper than buying power from a utility.
NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Disagree. 1. poor countries already have electric power. most of the countries are using 220volts, that charges your electric car just fine. evs will soon be cheaper that most gas cars because no maintenance, 1 million mile power tranes, no spark plugs, fan belts, clutch, heater core, oil change, air filter, gas, gas filter. 2. The power of the existing industry - ha. Economic forces conquer all. Coal is failing because nat gas is way cheaper. Just like solar power and wind power will soon be cheap enough to attack nat gas. 3. Tesla is doing just fine against basically the entire gas, financial, automotive industries, etc.

WorldMaker 7y ago

> 1. Poor countries cannot afford the EV infrastructure. As Africa gains in wealth it is absolutely going to rely on gasoline engines, the government stability is not there to allow for a wide spread EV charging infrastructure. Plus EV is far more expensive putting it out of reach for emerging economies. On the flipside, poor countries with less sunk infrastructure costs in place have more raw capability to leap frog on infrastructure evolutionary steps. There's no reason to run copper telecom lines to bootstrap fiber telecom lines if you are building from scratch today. There are developing nations with far faster internet speeds than the US average because they don't have miles and miles of copper to replace. Just as you accuse the previous poster of ignoring the power of existing industry, the same applies in the other direction to poor/developing countries that they have fewer existing industries to side-step in a bootstrap process. A lot of people may not appreciate it yet, but EV infrastructure has less bootstrap costs than gas infrastructure. A lot of industrial nations have already invested so much sunk costs in gas infrastructure it seems cheap as free or magic, but gas stations don't build themselves and gas doesn't magically show up at the pump. The bonus that EV infrastructure is concomitant with Electric Grid infrastructure means that poor countries need only "one bootstrap" rather than "two" to get a strong renewable (distributed) EV Grid. EV infrastructure is almost a two-for-one deal with Electric grid infrastructure. It's a lot cheaper than reliable gas infrastructure, especially when you consider the overlap with other electric grid needs.

elihu 7y ago

I think it's likely that basic electric vehicles will soon be cheaper than basic gas vehicles. Right now, batteries are the biggest part of the cost (if you want long range), but they're getting cheaper all the time. If you're optimizing for low cost and mass production, you don't need rare-earth permanent magnets in the motor or battery chemistries that require cobalt. Power grids may be a problem, but it's possible to solve in a decentralized fashion by installing solar panels and/or wind generators near the place where the car is being used. Right now, solar is more available to wealthy people, but there again costs are coming down and in many cases solar is cheaper than buying power from a utility.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago

Disagree. 1. poor countries already have electric power. most of the countries are using 220volts, that charges your electric car just fine. evs will soon be cheaper that most gas cars because no maintenance, 1 million mile power tranes, no spark plugs, fan belts, clutch, heater core, oil change, air filter, gas, gas filter. 2. The power of the existing industry - ha. Economic forces conquer all. Coal is failing because nat gas is way cheaper. Just like solar power and wind power will soon be cheap enough to attack nat gas. 3. Tesla is doing just fine against basically the entire gas, financial, automotive industries, etc.