Forget Elon Musk. Ignore the hype around battery powered electric cars. An electric battery powered automobile is a poor option at any price and I'll tell you why.
But first, before doing that let's consider the mineral fuel burning internal combustion engine powered car. It is brilliant. Henry Ford was onto something when he mastered its mass production and brought freedom to planet Earth. Yes, freedom. Suddenly, the average Joe or Janet could go anywhere and often did. In a matter of minutes you can put enough energy into a car to get you clear across the country. That's a lot of energy.
And cars have got better over time. So good in fact they're now five star hotels on wheels. I'm surprised they can't perform minor medical procedures on the occupants as they drive along, that's how good they are. Running out of fuel is rarely a risk as, wait for it, there are filling stations everywhere and the fuel itself is plentiful and cheap. The alternatives are also pretty cheap whether that be bio-fuels or coal to oil, or even coal gas. You get the idea.
Now along comes the so-called planet friendly option. The battery powered electric vehicle. It's not new in fact, the option has been explored time and again and it always fails. It will fail now, things haven't changed that much.
First, let's consider the battery itself. It consumes valuable minerals that are hard to mine and places them in a box. The battery then wears out pretty fast. Compared to a gasoline powered car, that's very fast. Batteries lose their get up and go. And then they die. When they die the battery has to be recycled, and the car owner has to buy a replacement or throw the car away. Do you want to throw your battery powered car away after 5-6 years?
Second, the battery is a store of energy like the fuel tank on its competitor. But it's a poor store of energy; batteries are fast to discharge and slow to charge. With gasoline it's the other way around. And batteries get drained fast, faster than a tank of gas. So, power to weight, rolling resistance (wet roads and icy conditions), wind and so on are big factors in how range is affected. Then when you run out of juice, that first problem kicks you in the butt. Oh dear. It's like travelling back to the days of horse and cart, where travellers had to stop at an Inn to refresh the horses, often staying overnight. Do we want to go back to that?
Third, infrastructure. How many charging points are out there and how long will it take to wait for a charging plug to become vacant? At a petrol station the queue may last a few minutes. Imagine the length of queue at electric charging points. Right now that is not an issue as so few cars are electric. But when the car fleet gets to as little as 5% of all cars, watch the road rage. It's going to be incredible.
Fourth, what do you do with a stranded battery vehicle? With a gasoline powered vehicle, you simply hitch or walk to the nearest station, buy a jerry can, fill it up, then go back to the car and pour in the gas. Voilà, you're back going again. With a battery powered car if you have no generator back-up you'd have to get a car transporter costing hundreds of dollars. An expensive mistake running out of juice that one.
Fifth, what is the resale value on that battery powered car?
Sixth, have you had enough already?
What may work are hybrids and plugin hybrids. Or even electric cars with back-up generators on board, used solely to boost range. But purely electric is a fad pure and simple.
What are the advantages of electric? Well, as someone who has worked with electric powered equipment all his adult life, electric power provides more grunt. Lots of it. In industrial settings electric is superior. But you never want to rely on batteries as they're a dud. Trust me. So taking that into consideration I can see inner city commercial vehicles being electric as they often are now anyway. And electric is very useful in warehousing, fork hoists are often battery powered as you don't have to vent the enclosed spaces. It's all been thought of before.
And heavy trucks may be hybrid, but then why not just use rail? Construction vehicles like excavators are often hybrid these days, that's good too, but of course much industry runs on three phase power and has done so since Adam was a cowboy.
Basically what I'm saying is that anyone who tells you that battery powered electric automobiles are the way of the future is a snake oil salesman. It's as straightforward as that.
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