Elon Musk thinks that eventually every car will eventually be electric. I agree with him, but on a MUCH longer time frame (maybe 40 or 50 years). Here is my reasoning: It basically comes down to supply and demand of oil. The more electric cars that are on the road, in theory, the cheaper gas should get. This obviously wouldn't be a 1:1 direct correlation, but the idea is the same. And since gas would be so cheap people would have no incentive to switch to EV (unless solar panels get super cheap, but they don't work great everywhere). Obviously there are other factors as well. There is such a huge infrastructure for gas/oil already. An infrastructure that huge with so many jobs on the line would take decades to become obsolete. Here are my "stab in the dark" predictions: 2020 - 10% of all miles are EV 2030 - 35% of all miles are EV 2040 - 60% of all miles are EV 2050 - 75% of all miles are EV 2060 - 90% of all miles are EV and I believe it would essentially kind of cap there with extremely slow growth after that All of my opinions would change if any new legislation came out affecting this one way or the other.
Apart from some brief episodes when I fell-off-the-wagon, I've never done my commute by car. For the last 4+ years I've been walking to a (diesel?) train, then taking a short electric tram at the other end. At my work they've got a decent chat software installed, and while a lot of my work is still hands-on face-to-face, when I'm talking to people on another floor I find myself going with the chat program more and more. Coupled with Win7 's "snip" program, I can mark-up, post and discuss screenshots and/or text, very quickly. And it has a big advantage in that everything's recorded. Not just for the court case, lol, but due to my flakey memory. A few weeks later I can search history, make sure I've got it right. Completely rambling, but where I'm going: While there'll always be a need for some employees to physically be somewhere, there's a mounting collection of occupations where technology is advancing, and the step-across to telecommuting is becoming much less of a stretch. If legislators could deflect some of their attention, from acquisition of energy sources, to reduction of energy requirements...
With that type of growth rate, the vast majority of legislation coming out would focus on all the taxing of electric fuel, vehicles and stations. Seriously.
Holy mackeral if you are giving us a conservative, measured prediction, I hate to ask what Elon Musk's less conservative prediction is! 10% EV miles by 2020 would be incredible wild and crazy change in 6 years. Hybrids have been out for 14-yrs and less than 1% of the vehicle population are hybrids (last time Experion quoted on the subject). And I guess hybrids would not even qualify. Right now I see EV a lot like E10 ethanol. That is to say, requires Congress* for life support. I think that Congress will eventually mandate EV/PHEV to some amount say 5-10% of the "gasoline pool" for the usual reason (to create jobs and industries that would not even exist except for Congressional mandates/subsidies). The new CAFE rules are one example. But I don't think the new CAFE rules are going to force 10% EV miles by 2030. So that means you are predicting ground swell of natural EV fans (due to technology breakthru's?) but that does not really follow logically as yet from the current highly subsidized roll-out. * and CARB
I agree with Elon. When I looked at buying a Prius in 2009 petrol here was £0.90p a litre. Now it's £1.30. In 2006 it was £0.65p. China and India to name two are all wanting to use this finite resource. The only way is up, and fast.
Depends a lot on the EROI for the shale oil. Most I have seen don't even make it worth doing except for the subsidies.
All other things being equal. But of of course they aren't. Oil is getting more expensive to extract. Its problems are getting more expensive to fix (or hide). Most cars only last about 10 years. I wouldn't want to be the guy buying a new ICE car in 2050 when 75% of all cars are electric, and gas stations and ICE car service stations are going out of business left and right. How about this for a question: When will the last new ICE car be sold?
it just goes to show you how low we are on the cheap high quality oil reserves. IOW, we wouldn't be doing tar sands and shale otherwise. .
That's a good point. It may be somewhat of a domino effect. Might go from 60% of new cars sold are EV's to 100% pretty quick if people think they have less and less access to gas.
