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I have been of this opinion for a while. This is how things change - very slowly and then all at once. The best part is all the reports people use to tell you when things are going to happen are always issued by vested interests. The technology seems to be here right now. Political will and popular pressure could change things practically overnight. Here's hoping that the fossils end up as extinct as their nickname in short order, and untold tons of carbon never surface.
 
This just in...great news...amazing...

"The prime minister designate has already invited Green Leader Elizabeth May to be part of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations summit on climate change in Paris at the end of next month.
And he intends to invite NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and whomever is leading the Conservative party — be it Stephen Harper or an interim leader — as well, along with various non-governmental organizations and environmentalists, insiders say.
The premiers of all the provinces and territories that aren’t facing an election this fall have also agreed to accompany Trudeau."

Trudeau invites Elizabeth May, other party leaders to Paris climate change summit | National Post
 
This just in...great news...amazing...

"The prime minister designate has already invited Green Leader Elizabeth May to be part of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations summit on climate change in Paris at the end of next month.
And he intends to invite NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and whomever is leading the Conservative party — be it Stephen Harper or an interim leader — as well, along with various non-governmental organizations and environmentalists, insiders say.
The premiers of all the provinces and territories that aren’t facing an election this fall have also agreed to accompany Trudeau."

Trudeau invites Elizabeth May, other party leaders to Paris climate change summit | National Post

And they will be chauffeured around in EV's...cool:

Renault-Nissan Alliance to Provide World's Largest EV Fleet to International Conference at COP21 -- PARIS, October 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Anyone know if Tesla has plans? Elon should be keynote speaker.
 
The demand will be there by 2026. I have little doubt of that.

The problem is building the infrastructure. Cars require a lot of heavy industry to build and support. Cars with a new fuel source (electricity in this case) requires a whole fueling infrastructure. Yes people with garages and enough power to their house can charge at home, but about 1/2 the population of the US are renters, and there are a lot of older houses that don't have garages, or even driveways. A friend of mine lives in one of the most trendy neighborhoods in Portland, but everyone parks on the street because the old houses were built before cars were common. On some streets rings to tie up your horse are still there. A whole infrastructure for people who can't charge in their garage has to be built, and a lot of that is going to take buy in from governments, if not the governments doing it themselves.

Then the long distance travel network of fast chargers has to be vastly expanded from where it is today. The PEV market share in the US was 0.72% in 2014 and 0.27% in Canada, and well over half of those were hybrids that don't need charging on the road. Get that even into single digit percentages and you're looking at building a hell of a lot more chargers on highways. It can be done, but it will take time. As long as there is a myriad of charging standards, there needs to be a lot of duplication of effort built in to support all the different charging needs.

Then there comes the problem of building the batteries. The world builds about 100 million cars and light trucks per year, Tesla is aiming to build 500,000 Model 3s a year with the Gigafactory output. To support switching the entire world's car production over to electrics will require at least 200 Gigafactories. The first one isn't finished yet, and while Tesla will probably break ground on Gigafactory 2 in a few years, nobody else in the world is even hinted at being interested in building their own. Most mainstream car makers have their head in the sand about electrics. They build them because they have to and want to appear green, but even the "mass produced" electrics like the Volt and Leaf are built in tiny numbers compared to ICE cars from the same manufacturers. I believe Chevy is aiming to build about 50,000 Bolts a year, less than Teslas production levels when the Bolt will be introduced and one of the lowest volume vehicles in the GM lineup, they sell almost as many Corvettes.

If the Model 3 takes off, the other car makers will panic and get serious about electric cars, but they won't even break ground on the battery factories until 2020 or later. It would be impossible to build 50 million BEVs a year by 2026. If the Model 3 is popular, it's quite possible there will be the demand for 50 million BEVs by 2026, but the market won't be able to deliver. Maybe a few million a year by then. Maybe, it depends on how much resistance there will be from the ICE lobby when the handwriting is on the wall.

Another factor the article doesn't address is young people don't buy new cars anymore. I read something a few months back that the average age of a new car buyer in the US was 50. Some brands had average ages around 60 and I think the youngest average buyer was 46 for something like Range Rover. Only a few 20 somethings buy new cars anymore. The millennials are not as interested in driving as previous generations and many don't get driver's licenses until in their 20s. And when they do go car shopping, they look for used cars. Some of this may be more of a trend in the US than other countries, but the millennials are usually so burdened with debt they are delaying buying new cars, houses, and having families, all of which has a negative impact on the economy.

With consumer electronics, you can see huge market shifts in a very short period of time because that industry is very light on the industrial needs to make the product. You only need about 500mg of raw materials to make an iPhone, but you need several tons to make a car. Consumer electronics also tend to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The iPhone is often touted as revolutionary, but none of the hardware was all that revolutionary, it worked with the existing cell network without modifications and basically was just a shrunk down portable computer with a phone function. All the elements were already there to put together. An electric car is a revolutionary thing, it requires a new support network and at least for Tesla, includes some technologies never seen in cars before.

Tesla also has a different approach to manufacturing than anyone else. The Gigafactory is going to be vertically integrated with raw materials in one end and finished battery packs out the other. Nobody in the car business is doing anything remotely like that today. I think it's the wave of the future, but it will take a while for the revolution to take hold and there will be casualties as companies that can't keep up will go out of business.

Very good and thorough thoughts wdolson. You deserve a Model S!
 
Very good and thorough thoughts wdolson. You deserve a Model S!
Elon himself says 2030:

"Mr. Musk is betting on China’s huge demand for electric cars. By 2030, more than half the newly produced vehicles in the world will be battery-powered, and China will take the biggest share, he said, according to a transcript of his speech posted on Tesla’s verified Chinese social-media account."

Tesla Plans to Produce Electric Vehicles in China Within Two Years - NASDAQ.com


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I have been of this opinion for a while. This is how things change - very slowly and then all at once. The best part is all the reports people use to tell you when things are going to happen are always issued by vested interests. The technology seems to be here right now. Political will and popular pressure could change things practically overnight. Here's hoping that the fossils end up as extinct as their nickname in short order, and untold tons of carbon never surface.
I'm in this camp...
 
Haha...don't mess with Greenpeace:

Greenpeace takes aim at VW with Halloween ad calling for affordable electric cars | The Drum

greenpeace_vw_ad_0.png
 
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I have been of this opinion for a while. This is how things change - very slowly and then all at once. The best part is all the reports people use to tell you when things are going to happen are always issued by vested interests. The technology seems to be here right now. Political will and popular pressure could change things practically overnight. Here's hoping that the fossils end up as extinct as their nickname in short order, and untold tons of carbon never surface.

So, if both of these are true (limited Tesla manufacturing scale and sudden market change), then that suggests the market will create manufacturing capabilities in parallel, such as competing battery factories, or an about-face on the luck of Tesla to scale their battery manufacturing themselves (also probably massive parallel investment). Massive rapid worldwide factory retooling isn't unprecedented, but last time we did it we practically lost our greatest generation and it ushered in an era of the worst generation and we are still reeling from its awful effects. Here's to hoping cataclysmic background doesn't befall any successful rapid conversion scenerio.