Goodbye, Mr. V8

I guess it's obvious by now that the electric car will eventually replace ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars. -- and this is NOT a thread about which is better --
This is musing about what the landscape for automobiles looks like in the future, and how fast that future is coming at us.

So, I'm curious about a couple of things: 1) How many years do you think are left until the tipping point where electric becomes dominant? and, 2) What is that going to look like for enthusiasts like us?

To say the ICE will disappear completely is unlikely. Worst case, you'll have people who will keep them around forever as playthings like Jay Leno and his steam cars. But there has to come a point when electric charging stations surpass gas stations. And you have to think that at some point in time gas stations will disappear and you will only be able to get fuel at specialty shops - or you'll have to make it yourself.

I'm sure in some ways the electric experience will be better, but I'm glad I've been able to enjoy the wonderful sound of a high performance engine in my lifetime. It's going to be a sad day when that's gone.

Thoughts?

 

Charging stations will be at gas stations. Because the Big Gulp is already there.

 

My next car will be electric.

I don't know how fast the change from ICE to electric will occur, but I would guess within the next 5-10 years. I would be very hesitant right now to buy an expensive ICE car, with the thought that it might be very difficult, if not impossible, to sell in 5 years. The depreciation hit will be enormous.

 

I dont think electric will be our future. Not sure what will be but not electric. We already have electrical shortages all over the country at certain periods and no path in sight to remedy the problem we already have in a cost effective and environmentally acceptable way. To replace the worlds fleet of petro powered cars will require massive increases in available electricity and it also does not address the length of time required to refuel electric cars. It will be something but not electric, it is just a way station on the way to something else.

 

Utility scale solar is the future, along with electric cars. However, it may not be battery powered as we traditionally understand it.

As for current battery charge times, I have personally seen 760 kW charging units with 2MW peak capacity filling large battery packs in minutes.

 

I think it's going to be 15 years before everything is electric on the streets and it's all mainstream. New cars will probably be all electric in 7 years.
I want to hold off buying an electric car as long as I can because I'm going to miss an engine.

 

Volkswagen, one of the largest car companies in the world, has stated that their final internal combustion engines will be introduced in 2026, with plans to sell variants of these engines in cars past 2040.

The major issue with electric cars is cost (those made by profitable, legacy automakers are still much more expensive compared to equivalent gas powered cars), range anxiety (which is mostly due to the time it takes to charge an electric car), and the infrastructure that will be required to charge them for the millions of people who don't have a driveway or garage to charge their car at home, or who want to be able to road trip the car long distances without hassle. The first two are being worked on fairly quickly, but the last one is probably going to take quite a while to solve, at least a decade or more.

As far as the combustion engine being regulated out of existence, I think a more likely scenario is that eventually so few of them will be being made that they will no longer be the focus of the climate change and political movements that are currently against them. Once combustion engines are creating 0.5% or 0.1% of worldwide emissions, the aforementioned movements are going to move on to other more pressing matters of global warming.

IMO, in 25+ years, a combustion engine will likely be looked at as fun curiosity for car enthusiasts to enjoy, in a way similar to how horses are viewed today vs. 150+ years ago when they were primary transportation that was, similarly, causing mass pollution in the streets of every city, just in a different way:

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/#:~:text=by Ben Johnson,the streets of London alone.

 

It will take decades.

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2020/01/27/ten-predictions-for-2030/

 

I usually hear that the electrical infrastructure is no where near being able to support a country of electric cars.
so if a Tesla goes 400 miles on 100 kwh, or 4 miles per kWh, and Americans do 3 trillion miles a year (per FHA). Then we would need 750 billion more kWh per year. The US produces 4000 billion kWh per year. So we would need to up electricity production by 20 percent. That doesn’t seem that significant. What am I missing?

 

California's power network can barely support their infrastructure as is and when it does work it ends up causing forest fires anyway. I'm not seeing electric taking over ICE for the next 20 years. Maybe after 2040. 20 years will fly by fast though.

 

Today's electric car's are like old flat head V8's. Good, but not like we'll see 10 or 20 years from now. There will be major advances in battery and charging technology.

 

The tipping point will never be reached until one can hop in an electric and drive coast to coast without having to plan ahead to accommodate charging. Also, I don't know how they are going to replace the joyous sound of an ICE. Do you recall reading a review of a modern sports car that doesn't at least mention what it sounds like? I think there will always be gasoline engines, it just might be hard to find gas at some point. Might have to make you own. ;-)

 

Easier to convert to ethanol. Easier to make that on your own too and drink some of it if you want.