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New Jersey calls for gas-car sales ban by 2035

1 points by elsewhen 6y ago

dr_orpheus 6y ago
I assume this means sale of new gasoline cars only. I would think the used car market would still include sales of older gasoline cars.
polka_haunts_us 6y ago
The phasing out of gas powered cars is going to mean the phasing out of the consumer gasoline industry. How long after all these bans take effect do you think it will take for running a gas powered car to become prohibitively annoying?
- jfengel 6y ago
  My guesstimate: about 15 years from then (~2050), depending on your particular tolerance. That's the amount of time it would take for that last new car to disappear from the road. The gas stations won't disappear. They are, after all, making only bare profits on the gas itself. They're convenience stores with gas as a draw. They'll reduce pumps as they get fewer customers, and add in other features, which I can't predict because they depend on what charging and other transportation infrastructure looks like 30 years from now. The 15 year point is where that gets reduced to 1 pump in the corner, and some out-of-the-way gas stations give it up entirely because it's too much trouble to ship gas to them. 30 years is the "fusion and flying cars" time frame, beyond which anything is possible. Electric cars will evolve much, much faster than gas cars -- the state of gas fueling is pretty much identical today to where it was in 1990. Self-driving cars can also completely change what it means to fuel up a car at all, or to own one. So I suspect that well before 30 years from now, most people will have changed to something different. The people you're talking about, the ones who have a strong attachment to gasoline-powered cars and will keep them until they become "prohibitively annoying" -- they're the ones with 30 years to go. Well before that, they'll be seen as weirdos who enjoy standing outside in smelly chemical stations rather than fueling up at home, and putting up with the noise of 3,000 explosions per minute in front of them. But they'll be proud of it, and they'll be the ones keeping the gas stations fairly ubiquitous until around 2050.

1 points by elsewhen 6y ago

I assume this means sale of new gasoline cars only. I would think the used car market would still include sales of older gasoline cars.

polka_haunts_us 6y ago

The phasing out of gas powered cars is going to mean the phasing out of the consumer gasoline industry. How long after all these bans take effect do you think it will take for running a gas powered car to become prohibitively annoying?

jfengel 6y ago
My guesstimate: about 15 years from then (~2050), depending on your particular tolerance. That's the amount of time it would take for that last new car to disappear from the road. The gas stations won't disappear. They are, after all, making only bare profits on the gas itself. They're convenience stores with gas as a draw. They'll reduce pumps as they get fewer customers, and add in other features, which I can't predict because they depend on what charging and other transportation infrastructure looks like 30 years from now. The 15 year point is where that gets reduced to 1 pump in the corner, and some out-of-the-way gas stations give it up entirely because it's too much trouble to ship gas to them. 30 years is the "fusion and flying cars" time frame, beyond which anything is possible. Electric cars will evolve much, much faster than gas cars -- the state of gas fueling is pretty much identical today to where it was in 1990. Self-driving cars can also completely change what it means to fuel up a car at all, or to own one. So I suspect that well before 30 years from now, most people will have changed to something different. The people you're talking about, the ones who have a strong attachment to gasoline-powered cars and will keep them until they become "prohibitively annoying" -- they're the ones with 30 years to go. Well before that, they'll be seen as weirdos who enjoy standing outside in smelly chemical stations rather than fueling up at home, and putting up with the noise of 3,000 explosions per minute in front of them. But they'll be proud of it, and they'll be the ones keeping the gas stations fairly ubiquitous until around 2050.