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For your purposes EVs are not crap. For lots of purposes EVs ARE crap. For example my neighbor's job involves driving specialized supplies to a number of reta

For your purposes EVs are not crap. For lots of purposes EVs ARE crap. For example my neighbor's job involves driving specialized supplies to a number of retail outlets every day. It's a very niche business that involves pickup truck and 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries. If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment. The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid. Electic motor technology is fantastic. Battery technology is miserable. And the reason we don't see "breakthroughs" every month, except those that involve press releases and nothing else, is because ideas and chemistry is cheap. It's easy to get patents. What is hard is actually manufacturing. Taking an idea that works theoretically in a lab versus making it work in reality as a commercial product is similar to learning logging down the street the first time versus winning an olympic medal. In terms of technology what we have now is really just a series of incremental improvements over technology released in the 1990's. The rare earth magnets, the computer control of motor phases, the lithium batteries are all stuff designed for portable Japanese consumer electronics. It's just been supersized and refined for EVs.

taylodl 5y ago
This is an example of "whatabout-ism." There's going to be a counter-example of someone for which EVs make little sense, but that doesn't mean that EVs make little sense for a large group of drivers or maybe even the majority of cases for which ICE vehicles are currently used. Can EVs 100% replace every single ICE vehicle in every single application? No - and they don't need to in order to be highly useful and provide aggregate benefits.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  I think the most likely mid-tier outcome will be that in about 25 years or so, the grand majority of cars on the road will be EV, but that industrial companies will primarily use ICE vehicles, and for road trips and other such short term, long-distance, time essential driving events ICE vehicles will be typically available for rent.
  - taylodl 5y ago
    I think that's a very realistic scenario. Thanks to the Russian war in the Ukraine we might even be looking at 15 years instead of 25 but that's just timing, I think you have the right outlook.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
> The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid. I would pin it on the groups that campaigned against efficient city design, efficient public transport, efficient private automobiles, efficient taxing of externalities like lead and CO2 and vehicle weight, efficient electrical production like wind and solar and told a whole lot of silly lies in the processs because they were getting a cut of fossil fuel profits. But yeah, if you supported and voted for those people and accepted their wild lies without realising they were scamming you, then you are kinda dumb, so I'm not ruling out dumbness as a contributing factor, just that there was a lot of time, effort and money put into making people dumb on this particular topic and I'll save my ire for the smart people doing the scamming rather than the dumb people being scammed.
hinkley 5y ago
Isn't it great then that we have so many options in vehicles to choose from? > 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries. If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment. The fact that the new truck the USPS commissioned comes in an electric version says you're wrong. Some delivery trucks are moving 8 hours a day, but many are stopped or turned off a lot of that time. Some have much heavier loads (delivery trucks for distribution from bottling companies will likely go hybrid, rather than electric). It really depends how rural the route is, and that's a double whammy because not only is it more miles but there are fewer opportunities to charge. But we aren't that far from a point where urban deliveries can be done with vehicles that are more specialized to that purpose. We don't need one vehicle that is useful for all scenarios. If anything we've moved away from that over time. I think the unspoken fear with shitting on someone else's parade is that if this catches on then eventually the supply and labor pool for your preferred way of doing things will shrink and you will lose your economy of scale. But honestly you should worry about that for your kids and grandkids, because that's going to be a good long time. And speaking of kids, the American Dream doesn't include cruising in a car anymore. Many kids today even in smaller towns are now delaying learning to drive. When you are against something you use the worst aspects of that thing as part of your rationale. If anything, refusing to reduce the consequences of cars will just galvanize this generation and their children against cars in general. Modest ICE vehicles benefit from both the introduction of EVs and outright banning of the worst ICE vehicles, in ways that were perhaps not true even a generation ago.
- ac29 5y ago
  > The fact that the new truck the USPS commissioned comes in an electric version says you're wrong. I'm not sure that this follows - I would be amazed if many USPS local delivery vehicles were driven 8 hours a day. A daily range of even 50 miles is probably way more than many routes need.

taylodl 5y ago

This is an example of "whatabout-ism." There's going to be a counter-example of someone for which EVs make little sense, but that doesn't mean that EVs make little sense for a large group of drivers or maybe even the majority of cases for which ICE vehicles are currently used. Can EVs 100% replace every single ICE vehicle in every single application? No - and they don't need to in order to be highly useful and provide aggregate benefits.

BizarroLand 5y ago
I think the most likely mid-tier outcome will be that in about 25 years or so, the grand majority of cars on the road will be EV, but that industrial companies will primarily use ICE vehicles, and for road trips and other such short term, long-distance, time essential driving events ICE vehicles will be typically available for rent.
- taylodl 5y ago
  I think that's a very realistic scenario. Thanks to the Russian war in the Ukraine we might even be looking at 15 years instead of 25 but that's just timing, I think you have the right outlook.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

> The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid. I would pin it on the groups that campaigned against efficient city design, efficient public transport, efficient private automobiles, efficient taxing of externalities like lead and CO2 and vehicle weight, efficient electrical production like wind and solar and told a whole lot of silly lies in the processs because they were getting a cut of fossil fuel profits. But yeah, if you supported and voted for those people and accepted their wild lies without realising they were scamming you, then you are kinda dumb, so I'm not ruling out dumbness as a contributing factor, just that there was a lot of time, effort and money put into making people dumb on this particular topic and I'll save my ire for the smart people doing the scamming rather than the dumb people being scammed.

hinkley 5y ago

Isn't it great then that we have so many options in vehicles to choose from? > 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries. If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment. The fact that the new truck the USPS commissioned comes in an electric version says you're wrong. Some delivery trucks are moving 8 hours a day, but many are stopped or turned off a lot of that time. Some have much heavier loads (delivery trucks for distribution from bottling companies will likely go hybrid, rather than electric). It really depends how rural the route is, and that's a double whammy because not only is it more miles but there are fewer opportunities to charge. But we aren't that far from a point where urban deliveries can be done with vehicles that are more specialized to that purpose. We don't need one vehicle that is useful for all scenarios. If anything we've moved away from that over time. I think the unspoken fear with shitting on someone else's parade is that if this catches on then eventually the supply and labor pool for your preferred way of doing things will shrink and you will lose your economy of scale. But honestly you should worry about that for your kids and grandkids, because that's going to be a good long time. And speaking of kids, the American Dream doesn't include cruising in a car anymore. Many kids today even in smaller towns are now delaying learning to drive. When you are against something you use the worst aspects of that thing as part of your rationale. If anything, refusing to reduce the consequences of cars will just galvanize this generation and their children against cars in general. Modest ICE vehicles benefit from both the introduction of EVs and outright banning of the worst ICE vehicles, in ways that were perhaps not true even a generation ago.

ac29 5y ago
> The fact that the new truck the USPS commissioned comes in an electric version says you're wrong. I'm not sure that this follows - I would be amazed if many USPS local delivery vehicles were driven 8 hours a day. A daily range of even 50 miles is probably way more than many routes need.