white exec wrote:
This situation won't last, as battery costs fall, performance increases, and word spreads. Early days yet, but progress will be exponential. They once said, especially in the UK, that diesel cars wouldn't catch on . . . and then look what happened. They said the same about digital printing, mobile phones, lead- and sulphur-free fuel, home computing, and an NHS.
I think it's very naive to believe that EV's won't dominate eventually. The trend lines are clear - prices are steadily dropping, performance and range is steadily improving, running costs, maintenance and reliability are already better than ICE. The driving experience for an EV is very nice - very quiet, smooth, easy to drive, effortless, even on a small 47kW car like mine.
Instant maximum torque at any road speed is available just by stomping on the pedal without having to change down a gear first or wait for an autobox to make up its mind to change down. Regenerative braking means you can control your speed down a slope just by lifting off the throttle rather than having to ride the brake pedal. It's surprising how much more pleasant this one pedal driving style is. It was the biggest thing I missed when I drove the Xantia recently.
ICE is at the end of 100+ years of development - we're wrung just about everything we can get out of the technology - it has nothing more to give, especially on the emissions front where there is more complexity in the emissions control part of an engine than the actual bit that makes the power. It's not possible to make an ICE car that has both very high power and performance, AND very high efficiency/MPG at the same time. You have to choose one or the other. (EG sports car or econobox)
With an EV it is possible to make a very high performance car that can outperform all but the fastest ICE but at the same time be more efficient and frugal than the best diesel econoboxes. You can have you cake and eat it too. A sensible family/commuter car that is economic to run but goes like the clappers, instantly, if you put your foot down.
Certain use cases (family commuter) will make financial and practical sense before other use cases (taxi, tourer etc) but eventually most if not all use cases will be covered once range and charging times are adequate.
It's not a matter of if EV's will succeed, it's just a matter of when.