I would argue that if you had a car with a 200 mile range and could get a full recharge while you have a coffee and some apple pie, they’d also be practical as your only means of transportation, as a daily driver. If storage technology and an infrastructure evolves to that point, ICE vehicles will have no advantage as daily drivers. At that point it’d only be our innate sense of security with “known technology” that keeps us from buying all electric vehicles.
Right now I commute 31 miles each way. With a Tesla I could unplug and drive to work in the morning, stop to do some shopping on the way home, and plug in again at night. Heck, I could vene go to the beach (50 miles each way). The only things keeping them from being practical for me are the initial cost and the weekend trips.
SA has the most singular acute control but usually within concert with the other direct drilling nations as part of OPEC. Long term, we can cost effectively work on other sources. My point being that the immediate price reduction short term by OPEC should not deter us from our goal of other alternative sources of energy. It always had in the past, and OPEC has always managed to change our long term agenda…CAFE standards hadn’t been changed for years due to that complacency for example.
When 2000 people plug in their electric cars (220VAC/50 amps) its nothing as far as the electric grid is concerned…
When 20,000 people do it, the grid will feel that and will have to respond to that extra load.
When 200,000 people do it, today’s grid, in most urban areas, will fail. That kind of load can not be accommodated without planning and improvement.
Today, electric cars get a free ride as far as fuel taxes are concerned. As their numbers grow, that subsidy can not continue or our roads and bridges will suffer even more than they are now…