Electric cars in the small local quantities they are in, just don’t figure into the mix. Dictators getting hangnails and frightened investment brokers have more sway over oil futures. The ultimate control of oil prices, war and the threat of it around oil producing nations…the big future for electric cars is fuel cells. And here is the funny part; petroleum based fuel cells…what a laugher that would be.
BingJust as an aside, road projects are bid out and then done by private contractors to complete. They don’t have to bid out their operations again once they’ve got the contract. So same as for toll roads but some of the toll roads I’ve been on aren’t all that well maintained. At any rate they are all done by privates except for very small maintenance items like signs and patches. There are only so many contractors available though so some of it depends on how many other projects are going on at the same time.
You are probably right, but still, there is a joke about I-35 through Texas.
“Scientists tell us that the sun will burn out in about 4.6 billion years, which means they will have to finish I-35 in the dark.”
Oil prices are in free-fall…OPEC will hold an “emergency” meeting this week…
You may have seen the sign: “Temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement.”
I think in many cases the sign should read: “Temporary improvement, permanent inconvenience.”
Repairs start at one end of the road and proceed to the other end. By the time they get to the end, it is time to start over again.
A lot of great, thoughtful comments here. On reflection, I think I’ve confused cause and effect. Electric cars don’t cause fuel prices to drop, they’re just a drop in the bucket. To some extent, electric cars are an ‘effect’ of high fuel prices; people start clamoring for alternatives when fuel prices are high, motivating development of electric cars (along with generous tax incentives). When fuel prices drop, electric cars are ‘collateral damage’ so to speak.
asemaster makes an excellent point about electric cars being more about saving the pollution rather than saving money, somehow I hadn’t considered that in my original post. Oh well, got a good conversation going anyway. 
Agree there are going to be more toll roads in the future. For one thing, collecting the tolls has gotten much less labor intensive with widespread adoption of “EZ-Pass” type systems, and now they can levy the tolls without people even having to slow down, reducing bottlenecks.
Probably toll roads can get built much faster because legislators don’t have to ‘find the money’ / raise taxes to pay for them. They can issue bonds where the interest / principle get re-paid with the money collected from the tolls when the road gets built.
With my son being in Ohio and us in Minnesota, we take frequent trips through Chicago. A couple years ago I thought the toll prices were outrageous but then discovered if you had the I- Pass (EZ Pass) transponder they were about half the cost. So we paid the $10 deposit, got the transponder, and nothing could be easier. You just sail on through the toll areas without even slowing down. You can go on line to look at your account and its automatically replenished with a CC when it gets low. We also used it on the tolls to New York, DC, etc. and is good everywhere except the south. Highly recommend it.
In the Austin TX area, we have TX-Tag RFID stickers that also work for the Houston and Dallas area toll roads. They don’t even have manned collection booths anymore. Cars that don’t have the transponder tags get a bill in the mail.
This is one very good reason to take the plates off your car before selling it to someone. Don’t count on them reregistering the car in their name. I found out the hard way.
The EZ pass ,thing a ma gig,costs a good bit more then that here,started to get one but the cost was prohibitive,no more then I would have used it,the cheap gas right now is to keep the market flooded with gas guzzlers and to stifle the development of electric and high mileage Diesels one of these days we will wish for $4 a gal gas,Big Oil is not your friend(and oil is not abiotic-ask most Phd Geologists) We will however run out of clean water and topsoil,before we run out of increasingly difficult to obtain crude oil.
The media LOVES electric cars more than the public so articles about their sales numbers are always more optimistic than the actual numbers. When hybrid and electrics sales are up, the media reports this with glee. When they are down, you rarely see any mention so the general public believes these products are on the verge of an runaway sales. They aren’t, they never were, they won’t be in the near term.
Tesla’s market value is $28 Billion compared to Ford’s $52 Billion. Tesla sells what, 50,000 cars a year while Ford sells 2.5 Million. WHY is Tesla worth HALF of Ford? Makes NO sense!
Sure, sales have steadily increased as more and more automakers have introduced better and better products but they are a tiny fraction of the cars and trucks sold. None of the models has met their sales targets when introduced. The sales don’t match the hype because the cars don’t yet meet the needs nor the price point of the buyer.
Don’t buy into the hype and the sales make perfect sense irrespective of the price of oil, No conspiracy here, just market forces at work.
Tesla's market value is $28 Billion compared to Ford's $52 Billion. Tesla sells what, 50,000 cars a year while Ford sells 2.5 Million. WHY is Tesla worth HALF of Ford? Makes NO sense!
Market cap is perceived value of a company…NOT what the company is worth. Amazon didn’t make a single dime in profit for over a decade…yet it had a market cap in the BILLIONS. People see the potential in electric cars and Tesla motors. And also batteries which Tesla is investing heavily in.
I think electric vehicles has a very bright future. They aren’t a viable option for most people…but then again when cars were first introduced some 130 years ago…only the wealthy could afford them. It took another 50 years before the price was low enough to appeal to the masses.
It took another 50 years before the price was low enough to appeal to the masses
No, it took only about 15 years, not 50. Remember the 1908 Model T? The car was invented in 1886 and cars didn’t enter rich folks homes until the turn of the century. The T was the first mass produced car for the masses.
Perceived or actual value of the company, my question still stands. Why do investors think Tesla is worth half of Ford? Electric cars have been around for nearly the same 130 years. Many other car makers have chosen to make electric cars but for the smaller, low end market, not the high end like Tesla. They could produce a direct Tesla competitor but choose not to. And no one is making any money off of electric cars. Tesla is just better at the hype. Investors should beware of the hype.
"I think electric vehicles has [sic] a very bright future."
Be that as it may, Tesla cannot patent the electric car. If the market becomes as hot as you think it might, the “real” mfrs get in the act…and ol’ Elon is stuck making what he can, hawking some patents, until they expire.
Poor ol’ Elon,crying all the way to the bank,as opposed to Bernie and all the Moguls(who hurriedly took the loot offshore)He at least is producing a tangible ,high quality car.
News Flash! Psst,big oil is a business,not in the business of being your friend(one of the biggest opponets of Nuclear power back in the day(They even promoted solar energy!)
Elon promotes solar energy, too. He’s the chairman of SolarCity, a solar system installer. This is another company operating at a loss (what a shock!) for 3 years running.
"big oil is not your friend"
And you think Tesla is?
No company is your friend. But at least companies who sell manufactured product give you something for your dollar. Financial institutions hold your money for you, use it to make billions, and you get none of the billions. And right now they’re suing the feds for $93billion claiming they didn’t give them enough in the bailout. As to the feds, well, they just take the money and use it to run your life.
I too believe there’s a great future for EVs. I’ve believed so for many years, and now that Elon Musk has solved many of the problems with mass lithium-ion arrays and with poor range issues, has initiated the development of a recharging infrastructure, and is actually manufacturing a car that people actually want, it looks like my optimism might be rewarded. If Elon Musk makes the same kind of breakthroughs with Tesla’s battery manufacturing that he has with applying the batteries, we may well see great EVs affordable to the working class (for prices comparable to the average SUV that so many working people own) in the near future.
As regards the EV market, there’s an old saying that the first one in the market gets 80% of the revenues. The Prius illustrates that the axiom holds true in the automotive marketplace too. It’s going to take years for other car manufacturers to compete with Tesla. I’m not even sure it’s possible for some… they’re too busy throwing up roadblocks to progress, too busy trying to get laws enacted that ban Tesla’s sales model. Perhaps twenty years from now GM will catch up to where Tesla currently is… unfortunately for GM, Tesla is continuing to move forward.
Just as it took decades for any of the (formerly) “Big Three” to be able to compete with Toyota’s Prius, and I’m still not sure they do, I predict that it will take decades for GM or Ford to compete with Tesla.
@“the same mountainbike” I remember the late 1950s when we thought fuel injection was right around the corner. A mechanic that took care of my car worked for Sun test instruments during tbis, time period and Sun even had service bulletins out about servicing the Bendix fuel injection system. However, we stumbled along with carburetors until the mid 1980s because auto manufacturers were hung up on carburetors.
The transistor was developed at Bell Labs about 1949. Yet, the new portable television I bought in 1969 still used vacuum tubes.
On the other hand, if consumers really demand something, that something hits the market place in a hurry. I remember in about 200O when we saw a new flat screen TV with a price tag of $5500. I paid less than $300 for a flat screen of the same size 2 years ago.
Right now, the Tesla is priced beyomd what most people can afford. However, there is an increasing demand. In 15 years it might be that the internal combustion engine will go the way of the cathode ray tube television.
Musk wants to standardize the EV market to use his batteries. He can make a lot more money selling his batteries manufactured in the plant that is under construction than he can selling automobiles. He won’t be hurting for business in his automotive division.
I guess my biggest problem with Telsa is their using a proprietary charging network. Millions of dollars going into the ‘Supercharger’ network, but it can only be use by Tesla cars. Flies in the face of widespread EV adoption, seems to me.
Triedaq, I support your conclusions. Practical EVs are really in their infancy, and I believe there’ll be some more quantum leaps in related technologies that will drive the cost down just as happened to VCRs, flat screen TVs, digital cameras, and every other thing technology based.
Texases, I think Elon is a genius. He’s building recharging infrastructure not only in the U.S., but also overseas. That availability should drive demand. Ultimately I think there’ll be metered charging stations that charge based upon the amount of electricity you use… similar to gas stations now. The recharging stations might even be at gas stations. Instead of saying “eat here and get gas”, the signs will say “eat here and get charged”.