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We basically postponed the r&d of one for 60 years and funded the other with infinite petro dollars. It really isn't that absurd. > we're having trouble displa

We basically postponed the r&d of one for 60 years and funded the other with infinite petro dollars. It really isn't that absurd. > we're having trouble displacing ICE with electric now Yeah, now, after 60 years of designing every single aspect of our modern lives around gas and gas cars, how surprising indeed ...

some_random 2y ago
What great innovations would have been made 60 years ago to the lead acid battery powered car that would have put them on par with contemporary ICE, to say nothing of surpassing it?
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  The various players in the ICE and oil industries had a common practice of buying out battery technology developers or their patents to keep advancement off the market. Lithium ion batteries were first developed in the 1970s, and could have come to market much earlier if not for those practices.
- beedeebeedee 2y ago
  You're missing the point. We rebuilt the built environment based around internal combustion cars capabilities. Everything became single use zoning, so you need to drive from your house to the store, school, work, etc. None of that needed to be done (and has had severe impacts on our society across the board). If we had been limited to early 1900s electric vehicles, we could have stayed with more traditional mixed use city planning. Folks could still use cars to go where they needed, but even more importantly, they could walk! And for longer distances, take a train. Not only would we have been better off pollution wise, we would have been better off physically, mentally, and morally (not had to support middle eastern authoritarians).
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    > Everything became single use zoning, so you need to drive from your house to the store, school, work, etc. None of that needed to be done But let's not pretend that it was forced upon us. Most people liked their single-family suburban home in quiet neighborhoods without a lot of businesses nearby with their crowds, traffic, and noise. Nobody was ever prevented from continuing to live in their inner-city apartments, they just mostly prefered not to, when they had the choice.
    - beedeebeedee 2y ago
      Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm pretty quick to demonize suburbs (and cars), but there were a lot of attractive things about them (and still are). We've had more than 60 years to live with them and it is pretty clear now what their problems are. I'd like it if we could move beyond them and bring back mixed use zoning as the default. My preference would be villages instead of subdivisions (i.e., clusters of housing and places of work with higher densities than suburbs, leaving the countryside intact, more like Europe).
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Without the gasoline car, we would never have built the interstate system. So imagine a world where a similar amount of money would have been dumped into mass transit instead of the interstate system. Imagine a world with high speed trains between major cities and EV's for local transport. For anybody not within 100 miles of a major city, they'd likely have gotten electricity earlier in a world which depended on that for transport. And stopping to charge for an hour every 100 miles is still a heck of a lot better than the alternative of a horse & buggy.
  - tiltowait 2y ago
    I’m very possibly missing your point. If so, I apologize. But the interstate highway system was started in 1956, 11 years before Petris’ proposal.
  - some_random 2y ago
    With the exception of additional money going to mass transit (which doesn't seem like a guarantee at all), that world sounds worse in every way than the one we ended up with.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Remember railroads of the day were all privately owned. There was passenger service between most major cities (at least where there was enough ridership to make it profitable) but that ended as people prefered the convenience of traveling in their own cars on their own schedules as opposed to waiting until tomorrow for the next train.
graemep 2y ago
> We basically postponed the r&d of one for 60 years and funded the other with infinite petro dollars. The R & D would have started much further away from a usable product. Maybe we would have got electric cars earlier, but not as early as the 60s or 70s. > Yeah, now, after 60 years of designing every single aspect of our modern lives around gas and gas cars, how surprising indeed Maybe in the US, but not in much of the world. I never owned a car when I lived in London, nor for most of the time I lived in Manchester. Lots of other cities are around the world are better in terms of managing without a car at all. The need for petrol cars is greatest for people who do long trips. The need for a car depends on distances, what people need to transport (goods, kids...). and the availability of public transport. Cities are much nicer with fewer cars and when easier to walk around.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  > The R & D would have started much further away from a usable product. Maybe we would have got electric cars earlier, but not as early as the 60s or 70s. Electric cars were a usable product in 1910, superior in most cases to the alternative of a horse and buggy. If they hadn't been outcompeted by gasoline cars they would have gotten better continuously and would never been unusable or inviable.
  - WorldMaker 2y ago
    It's interesting too looking back on the early politics of the electric car versus the gas car. The electric car was the "lady's car" because it was less messy, more reliable, easier to use, quieter, more efficient (higher range in some early cases). The gas car was the "man's car" because it was louder, harder to start, harder to maintain, needed a fuel that was harder to acquire, was overall less reliable. There's an interesting alternate history tale to be told if the Ford Motor Company had been lead instead of by Henry Ford by his wife Clara Bryant Ford (who was a big proponent for electric cars, in addition to being an interesting suffragette).
  - graemep 2y ago
    My wording was poor, what I meant was not competitive with petrol cars as early as the 60s or 70s.

some_random 2y ago

What great innovations would have been made 60 years ago to the lead acid battery powered car that would have put them on par with contemporary ICE, to say nothing of surpassing it?

Schiendelman 2y ago
The various players in the ICE and oil industries had a common practice of buying out battery technology developers or their patents to keep advancement off the market. Lithium ion batteries were first developed in the 1970s, and could have come to market much earlier if not for those practices.
beedeebeedee 2y ago
You're missing the point. We rebuilt the built environment based around internal combustion cars capabilities. Everything became single use zoning, so you need to drive from your house to the store, school, work, etc. None of that needed to be done (and has had severe impacts on our society across the board). If we had been limited to early 1900s electric vehicles, we could have stayed with more traditional mixed use city planning. Folks could still use cars to go where they needed, but even more importantly, they could walk! And for longer distances, take a train. Not only would we have been better off pollution wise, we would have been better off physically, mentally, and morally (not had to support middle eastern authoritarians).
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  > Everything became single use zoning, so you need to drive from your house to the store, school, work, etc. None of that needed to be done But let's not pretend that it was forced upon us. Most people liked their single-family suburban home in quiet neighborhoods without a lot of businesses nearby with their crowds, traffic, and noise. Nobody was ever prevented from continuing to live in their inner-city apartments, they just mostly prefered not to, when they had the choice.
  - beedeebeedee 2y ago
    Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm pretty quick to demonize suburbs (and cars), but there were a lot of attractive things about them (and still are). We've had more than 60 years to live with them and it is pretty clear now what their problems are. I'd like it if we could move beyond them and bring back mixed use zoning as the default. My preference would be villages instead of subdivisions (i.e., clusters of housing and places of work with higher densities than suburbs, leaving the countryside intact, more like Europe).
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Without the gasoline car, we would never have built the interstate system. So imagine a world where a similar amount of money would have been dumped into mass transit instead of the interstate system. Imagine a world with high speed trains between major cities and EV's for local transport. For anybody not within 100 miles of a major city, they'd likely have gotten electricity earlier in a world which depended on that for transport. And stopping to charge for an hour every 100 miles is still a heck of a lot better than the alternative of a horse & buggy.
- tiltowait 2y ago
  I’m very possibly missing your point. If so, I apologize. But the interstate highway system was started in 1956, 11 years before Petris’ proposal.
- some_random 2y ago
  With the exception of additional money going to mass transit (which doesn't seem like a guarantee at all), that world sounds worse in every way than the one we ended up with.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Remember railroads of the day were all privately owned. There was passenger service between most major cities (at least where there was enough ridership to make it profitable) but that ended as people prefered the convenience of traveling in their own cars on their own schedules as opposed to waiting until tomorrow for the next train.

graemep 2y ago

> We basically postponed the r&d of one for 60 years and funded the other with infinite petro dollars. The R & D would have started much further away from a usable product. Maybe we would have got electric cars earlier, but not as early as the 60s or 70s. > Yeah, now, after 60 years of designing every single aspect of our modern lives around gas and gas cars, how surprising indeed Maybe in the US, but not in much of the world. I never owned a car when I lived in London, nor for most of the time I lived in Manchester. Lots of other cities are around the world are better in terms of managing without a car at all. The need for petrol cars is greatest for people who do long trips. The need for a car depends on distances, what people need to transport (goods, kids...). and the availability of public transport. Cities are much nicer with fewer cars and when easier to walk around.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
> The R & D would have started much further away from a usable product. Maybe we would have got electric cars earlier, but not as early as the 60s or 70s. Electric cars were a usable product in 1910, superior in most cases to the alternative of a horse and buggy. If they hadn't been outcompeted by gasoline cars they would have gotten better continuously and would never been unusable or inviable.
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  It's interesting too looking back on the early politics of the electric car versus the gas car. The electric car was the "lady's car" because it was less messy, more reliable, easier to use, quieter, more efficient (higher range in some early cases). The gas car was the "man's car" because it was louder, harder to start, harder to maintain, needed a fuel that was harder to acquire, was overall less reliable. There's an interesting alternate history tale to be told if the Ford Motor Company had been lead instead of by Henry Ford by his wife Clara Bryant Ford (who was a big proponent for electric cars, in addition to being an interesting suffragette).
- graemep 2y ago
  My wording was poor, what I meant was not competitive with petrol cars as early as the 60s or 70s.