Which is exactly what buyers said about electrics in 1910! In 1901 40% of the registered cars in the US were electric, 40% were steam, 20% were gasoline powered. By 1910, the gas powered cars were ahead. When the first electric starter was introduced in 1912, that was the tipping point to the near-death of the electric car (they never went away entirely).
A few facts from 1910…
EVs were more expensive than ICE’s
EVs were fast enough to exceed most speed limits of the day as were ICEs
EVs had 80 mile range, plenty for travel in cities… which was the only place they could recharge since rural electrification wouldn’t happen for 40 more years.
Battery technology was constantly being improved…but still took a longer to recharge than an ICE to gas-up.
100 years later and the argument is still the same.
But…
EVs will become more prevalent
I doubt EVs will ever become cheaper than ICEs
I know ICEs will not become cheaper in the future!
I doubt EVs will take over 100% of the market in the next 50 years.
And I know none of this will be the end the big oil companies because of the huge number of useful things that are made of petroleum products.
I was wondering the same thing about my plug-in hybrid. I last charged it overnight on Thursday night/Friday AM, and then it sat in my unheated garage for more than 2 days w/o being driven.
On Saturday morning, I checked the temp in the garage, and it was in the low 20s, so I began to wonder if my batteries had lost some of their charge, and–if so–how much they had lost. So, even though I have no plans for driving today, I decided to plug it in and see if it needed a charge this morning. The charging function shut-down w/in a few seconds, and I got the message that the batteries were 100% charged.
What does skepticism have to do with not choosing to buy an EV now? Like you listed, the issues aren’t solved yet. You can’t buy today based on solutions that are yet to occur. It’s not called skepticism when it’s currently not actually fact.
To say “yet” does not make it a fact now or in the future.
The interesting part of other things being made of petroleum products is the realities of distillation and refining. A barrel of oil gives many different distillates which cannot be “converted” to others. Eg: if the damand for gasoline dropped but demand for diesel increased or stayed the same, gasoline will still be a byproduct of the refining process.
With the continued need for oil in plastic manufacture, who knows what will actually happen with the future price and availability of either gasoline or diesel if their demand drops?
Given the recent days long blizzard in Buffalo and surrounding areas, I was wondering how long the batteries would keep you warm enough to stay alive compared to an ICE with 1/2 or full tank of gas.
WE had steady winds of 50 mph with gusts to 79 and temps dipping into the single digits.
Sensible people in our area don’t let their tanks drop below 1/2 full for this reason.
Also, if you use up all of the charge for heat your car will have to be towed and you can’t carry a 5 gallon can of electricity to a tow yard or impound lot.
Wire them in a combination of series and parallel to get the right voltage and amperage. Cross you fingers that you make it to one of the ever growing number of charging stations popping up just about everywhere.
And, despite the major oil companies claiming that high fuel prices were merely a reflection of the companies’ increased overhead, they managed to rake-in record profits in 2022.
Considering the size of the company and inflation, they will set more and more records in the future.
The last quarter reported had XOM reporting 18.4% profit margin on $106.5 B in sales. Compare that to margins of an 8% gain in '21, 12.5% loss in '20 and 5.5% gain in '19. Not sure how XOM will fare for the whole year but if they carry that 18.4% for the whole year, their average profit margin over the last 4 years will be 4.85%.
Let’s compare ExxonMobile to Apple. Apple had $90 B in sales last quarter for a profit margin of 23%. Apple’s average profit margin over the last 4 years is 26% Far higher than ExxonMobile. Is anybody complaining about Apple’s profits?
I think that’s because the Apple die hards and fan boyz don’t care what the price of apple products climb to, they’ll buy them anyways. Therefore the price and the profits just keep increasing.
Oh yes they do if you count them the same way oil company haters do… income tax deductions for business expenses are always included in those subsidies.
