Electric Vehicles

A lot of progress has been made in recent years with regard to the development and market share of electric cars, some of them with self-driving capabilities. Tesla vehicles have hit a few speed bumps along the way (pun intended) but the technology looks promising.

The battery technology is one of the major hurdles preventing widespread adoption, along with the price of these cars. When the battery takes a half hour or more to fully charge and the cars aren't affordable to the average driver, it's going to prevent them from dominating the roads.

Another issue is that they aren't environmentally friendly if the electricity with which they are charged is produced via polluting and non-renewable methods. I know there's some progress in making the transition to clean energy, however.

Would you drive an electric car? I would for relatively short trips if I could afford one. Charging it overnight at home would work just fine for me most of the time.

Hmm. I can tell you a bit on the situation over here in Germany. There's a substantial number of practical problems with them, notably that electric cars are still very expensive. The government here (even the previous conservative-led one) has been giving substantial subsidies to people who buy new ones, though.

As you said, there's still major hurdles. One of them I see is that infrastructure for fast recharge is still awful in rural areas, and will be for the next years. And keep in mind, Germany is a fairly densely populated area - I can imagine this problem be only much much worse in more sparsely populated countries like the rural United States (which are so much more rural!). I think electric cars are a good choice for densely-populated urban areas, and their more widespread use can probably help against urban pollution. But outside of these, I can see combustion engines remaining to have the upper hand for a while.

Further on, think of Tesla itself what you want, but it's good that they're stirring up the car market and force other car companies to think about electric cars (something the German car industry has only halfheartedly looked into for many years). I think the competition is ultimately good in this regard for pushing developments in the right direction.

I'm in principle for electric cars, I also think that in mid-term (10-15 years here), the phaseout of old-timey combustion engines is probably inevitable. But there's many problems along the road, notably, as you said, the electricity for them has to come from somewhere, and we still rely too much on fossil fuels for that.

One of the higher-ups at my company drives a Tesla and I swear he thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I have to admit - it's nice, I've ridden in it quite a few times when we go out to lunch. The acceleration is crazy, for one.

Speaking of the charging, he doesn't use the charging stations, he leaves it plugged in over night in his garage. (He doesn't live that far away from the office).

Would I get one..? Probably not right now because if I do need to take a longer trip I don't want to be stuck at a charging station for a half an hour minimum. I'm not rich enough to have more than one car (my wife's car doesn't count since she needs access to it at all times in case of emergency) nor do we have space for another car.

So, the battery charging time is a big sticking point. The price on some models isn't too out of reach though it's hard to justify when there are cheaper cars that are fuel-efficient.

EVs are cool and all, I have nothing against them but yeah, that whole 30 min to charge thing is going to prevent adoption. The Teslas are sweet and I'd love to drive one.

You know though that solar panels are hell on the environment to produce and the average lifespan of them barely makes up for the pollution involved in making them. The small, portable panels are nice to take out camping, etc. They ain't "green" in reality but maybe that will change.

So EVs are still using fossil fuel made electricity but they still have some advantages if you're just using them for short trips and you can get your daily driving out of an overnight charge. The batteries are damn expensive to replace, keep that in mind, and cold weather is murder on the batteries.