[Newsbot]

Title: Elon Musk passes Jeff Bezos to become world's richest person on Bloomberg list
Category: Business
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2021-01-07 05:46:44

[DrCaleb]

It's too bad that electric vehicles will never catch on, otherwise there might be money in it.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

It's too bad that electric vehicles will never catch on, otherwise there might be money in it.

Most electric cars are priced to high for the average person. Rich people are supporting rich people in this case. The cheapest Tesla model (The Model 3) is around $36,200, which is way out of line for the majority of consumers.

My 2019 VW Jetta was around the $15,000 mark, and it's 900+ kilometer range on a single tank (farther if on the highway using cruise control) is still more than double than any Tesla or EV on the market. Add to the fact that I can fill up in less than 10 minutes from empty, while an EV (even using a Super Charger) needs close to a half hour at the minimum for a decent charge, and there's almost no comparison.

EVs can't hold a candle to ICE vehicles for the time being, and I don't see it changing anytime soon. ICE engines are a proven technology that aren't going anywhere.

Oh, and if you think Musk gets all his money from Tesla, you might not have heard of his other company known as Space X. He's getting all kinds of NASA contracts and other projects that are worth billions themselves.

-J.

[DrCaleb]

CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

It's too bad that electric vehicles will never catch on, otherwise there might be money in it.

Most electric cars are priced to high for the average person. Rich people are supporting rich people in this case. The cheapest Tesla model (The Model 3) is around $36,200, which is way out of line for the majority of consumers.

You sound exactly like the people complaining about Henry Ford's Model T.

The price will come down, the range will improve as batteries that were meant for laptops get re-developed for vehicles. That is how capitalism works.

CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:

Oh, and if you think Musk gets all his money from Tesla, you might not have heard of his other company known as Space X. He's getting all kinds of NASA contracts and other projects that are worth billions themselves.

-J.

You'd think someone would create or maintain a thread about that. Call it the 'Outer Space thread', or 'SpaceX thread'.

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

It's too bad that electric vehicles will never catch on, otherwise there might be money in it.

It might be shocking, but here in Alberta, the number of EVs has grown by 1000% in the last five years, while the number of gas-powered vehicles has remained essentially flat.

https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/c5eb22a ... e-2020.pdf

Sure, that's only going from 221 to 2280, but no other segment of the auto market is growing anywhere near as fast as EVs. Even hybrids have only grown by around 50%, while diesel vehicles have fallen by about 5%.

It's going to take a decade or two, but I believe the writing is on the wall for most personal vehicles switching from gas to EV. It wouldn't surprise me if by 2035, gas powered vehicles are few and far between.

[DrCaleb]

bootlegga bootlegga:

It's going to take a decade or two, but I believe the writing is on the wall for most personal vehicles switching from gas to EV. It wouldn't surprise me if by 2035, gas powered vehicles are few and far between.

My next truck will be a pure EV. I don't know which make/model yet, but the cost of repair and the obvious design intention to make the vehicle more expensive to repair of my long in the tooth F-150 made that decision for me.

[Caelon]

I have to agree with Boots on the timing of a decade or two before EV vehicles are the majority on the road. The current problem is range for distance travel. Around town with relatively few km per day they are a good fit. If you plan to travel to another city 300 km away, use the car to go around the city and then go home it is not going to happen. You may as well say it is an overnight trip. Winter would be worse when cold weather reduces battery performance and range.

Plan a vacation and you will be spending a good portion of it at charging sites. The idea of going 1000+ km in a day to get to your destination is not currently feasible. Put on a roof rack and extra items up top and the range is significantly reduced.

As technology improves then rnages and charging times will be better. China is developing a concept of battery swap. You pull into a charge station, they swap your low battery for a full one and you are on your way in 10 minutes. The convenience would be very attractive to people and save extra cost items like home charging units.

[DrCaleb]

Caelon Caelon:

China is developing a concept of battery swap. You pull into a charge station, they swap your low battery for a full one and you are on your way in 10 minutes. The convenience would be very attractive to people and save extra cost items like home charging units.

Lithium Ion batteries were designed for portable electronics. At first, no company that made batteries would manufacture them for Sony so that they could have a rechargeable Walkman. So Sony had to build a factory and do it them self. But Lithium Ion batteries do not have the energy density needed for cars, or even for power storage generated by renewables. And the are also slightly dangerous if punctured.

There are several companies out there that are developing batteries with the power density needed, that compares to the energy density of gasoline. And safer than both.

Tesla is even using different batteries built in it's mega factory for the Cybertruck, and the batteries for it's Asian Model 3 will also be different.

I think it may be years for EVs to dominate the roads, but that is just because there are only so many cars being made, and only so many cars being replaced annually. For short range, EVs already cost less to own than ICs, and if the only reason you will hold off is because you can't take your once in a lifetime family vacation in your car instead of a rental - you will miss out on the benefits now.