Originally posted by monochrome traditional gasoline-engine cars would cost 1/3 what they cost today.
Thank God for those laws and regulations. If none existed for safety and pollution related matters (as of late 70's), the death toll on traffic related accidents and respiratory diseases worldwide would be ten fold as of today.
Originally posted by Nicolas06 Electric are usually more expensive and have very low autonomy. They also take much more time to refill until the stations where you can exchange your exhausted batteries with one ready to go are as frequent as standard gaz stations. You can imagine having a second or third car eventually if you never need the autonomy and don't care the price difference, but that not compelling reason to choose it, anyway.
But there is more; All over the world most the electric energy is made from Petrol or Gaz.
Main exception is France. Here if you have an electric car, it really run from nuclear energy, that's true. But for most other countries it means it really run from gaz and petrol. Electric car is only ecologic only in France, and only if you consider nuclear energy ecologic. At least it doesn't emit CO2.
There no point to switch to electric car if it is to produce electricity with petrol... It is less practical more expensive and the added steps mean you'll need more petrol in the end for the same result.
On the opposite, just by favorising working from home 1 or 2 days per week you can give back more free time to many, decrease their monthly expense a bit, decrease traffic jam, and reduce your CO2 emissions. Final outcome is that we would sell and make less car reducing global GDP and that's not politically acceptable.
We could debate for days about the "real" ecological benefits of electric cars. This issue has been discussed widely all over. Of course, it all depends on the "where" (country, region, etc) and for "how much" (vehicle cost, government incentives, etc) the numbers could be boiled down. I do understand USA is about the single most important vehicle market in the world, but is not the only one neither a majority among worldwide sales. For example, where I live (Costa Rica), only 3% of electric power is produced from fuel burning and only at peak hours certain months of the year. Here, electricity is produced by hydroelectric power, geothermal, eolic (wind) and solar (photo-voltaic and heat transfer) means. In other countries like Iceland, 100% is geothermal and so on. We can discuss about the battery production and the heavy metal pollution from the battery production, recycling and disposal. Also, about the availability of "recharging stations" for certain markets.
But in the automobile industry there are about only two main considerations to care about
: 1) There are still very big interests (oil companies) in keeping their
status quo untouched, thus they will do everything and anything at their hands to boicot any "alternative power source" for vehicles, as long as they do not get a share of it, and 2) Oil industry, besides the oil companies, still means a lot of taxes and income for many countries all over and such countries are not ready to renounce to such taxes that easy. Think of it as the tobacco industry, where the biggest business goes to local and national governments by means of taxes.
Fortunately, in the photo business (the same we are discussing right here), none of the two situations described before happen. There is no "big brother" interested in boicoting new technology, neither third parties (governments) interested in keeping sales up for obsolete products. The only resistance to the market and technology improvement, is our own resistance to change.
For me, for example, I still do not cope with the idea that a camera body is now "disposable", as they become obsolete in just two-three years. I used to believe camera bodies were jewels to be kept as such for ever. OTOH, I have no problem knowing my computer is "jurassic garbage" after 12 to 18 months from original purchase. But that is just because I grew believing such. But not about the camera bodies.