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Old 08-25-2016, 11:21 AM   #4 (permalink)
Darwins Child
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I don't really know if this is OT or not, but before mass-market adoption of EVs (whether it be a Tesla supercar, or any other EVs), there are some important questions that mankind as a whole and consumers as individuals have to answer.

Before I retired, I worked in coal, oil and nuclear fueled power plants, so I know much more than the average person about how electricity is produced and a bit less about how that power is distributed to its consumers.

1. How will the electricity that will be required to manufacture the EV vehicles, as well as charge the batteries of perhaps billions of EVs, going to be produced and what electrical infrastructure is going to be required to bring that electricity into homes?

2. Will EVs be practical for those who live in snowy, very cold climates where, for just one example, those EVs' interiors must be constantly heated?

3. Which would be "better" -- to burn natural gas in a "clean" power plant that will produce electricity to charge an EV's battery, or to burn that natural gas in a vehicle that has a well-designed internal combustion engine?

All of the political and technical obstacles to EVs can be overcome with political (mostly propaganda) and technological solutions, especially if the electricity is going to be generated with wind turbines, solar panels, etc., but the surface of the planet and residential roofs in an EV-only world will almost certainly look far different than they do now.

To be as brief as possible, if centralized fossil-fuel or nuclear power plants generate the electricity for EVs, there will be a whole raft of political and technological problems that will have to be dealt with for literally hundreds of years (if the environmental conditions of the planet remain habitable for humans, that is).
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