He is rather confrontational, but QED does have a point.
If his point is that electric cars are not currently as cheap as gas cars, and that they are not perfect, then I concede that he has a point.
Right now the quick charge infrastructure does not exist. Right now production electric cars with the range and size he needs do not exist.
"Need" is a slippery word. Just what is it that we "need" in our transportation? And yes, nobody disagrees otherwise. But we just don't NEED quick-charge for EVs to work for most people taking most trips. EV's will never work for all people for all trips - just like every car in existance. QED falls into the all too common trap of, "It won't work for me, so it won't work for most people." The facts simply don't support his observation.
I myself could live with the limitations of an electric car that seats four adults and has a 100 mile range with the AC on.
And for the past six years my family has been driving that car of which you speak. We drive it every day, for *almost* every trip. This is a car that was designed for the 1996 model year. Think we could do better 13 years later if we actually wanted to?
It would be a very good second car. My family could probably live with two of them. We could rent a gasoline car for long trips.
In fact, it is a very good *first* car. Our second car is a Prius for the few times we need longer range.
Such a car does not exist.
Such a car is parked in my garage. Such cars were required in CA during the ZEV mandate years of the late 90's to early 2000's. Such cars were brought to market with just a few years of lead time. Such cars have logged many millions of miles in utility fleets and are still being driven 13 years later. When you say they don't exist, do you mean that they are not available for purchase? Of course you are correct - is that the fault of the technology or the utility of the technology? Of course not.
If it did, it would not be cost-effective for me with current prices.
My car has all but paid for itself completely at this point. ZERO expense for maintenance and service. Zero cost for fuel. And while this is an anomaly due ot supply/demand, my car is worth more today than what I paid for it new. I couldn't have afforded to NOT have an EV these past few years. And I'm not even taking into account the things that we can't quantify: making my own fuel, not polluting, increasing our national security, decreasing health expenses.
If gasoline were $4/gallon that might change.
Do you propose that we wait before taking any action (again) until gas is painfully expensive and the only outcry is to lower the price of gas at any cost? If we worked toward not needing gas now - while we didn't have to suffer that expense - we avoid the inevitable pain of inaction in the future when gasoline WILL be expensive again. Sometimes it costs money to save money in the long run. And sometimes we simply have to spend money to save us from ourselves. When everything is based on what's the least amount we can possibly spend... well... the results are all around us today.
The technology is promising, and the cutting edge cars like the Tesla Roadster are cool, but electric cars just aren't ready yet.
I try to remember that every day that I drive an EV as our main vehicle - as I have been for the past ten years. Or to put this another way - if we sit around and wait for EVs to be "ready" for us... we will have a long, long wait. We have to support the efforts that are going on right now. If nobody bought the first PCs, would you have that screaming machine on your desk right now? If nobody bought DVD players when there were only 100 titles available, and the devices cost $1000... would they cost $90 today, and be in everybody's home? We have to support where technology is going. Waiting until it is perfect means that we'll never get what we need.
I hope you noticed that QED wishes electric cars were viable.
Oh, I read what he wrote. I didn't get any sort of sincerety out of it, however. He "wishes" they were viable - much like you, I guess. And misses the fact that they ARE viable for many people in many situations. Wishing something good, and then having nothing but negative comments while ignoring just about all positive aspects just doesn't ring true for me. Does it for you?
