MattyG

Sometimes it can be hard to understand how things can change so quickly or remain bogged down in old ways. The US, Japan and Europe are innovation powerhouses and you can see how much can change in a shorter amount of time than you think. GM's EV1, Toyota's 1st generation Prius.

You can even have diesel electric long haul trucks and LNG generator electric trucks from firms like Nikola in Utah.

RNM GS3

Its very hard to change infrastructure to support electric cars.
Where are you getting the real estate to put these chargers or will gas stations be forced to convert to charging stations.

Can you imagine if there is a natural disaster or hot summer and power is knocked out.

mmarshall

Well, if power is knocked out, many gas pumps won't work...so what's the difference?

MattyG

It would depend on how the ramp up to such a transition would work. Nobody would expect an instant overnight transition to all electric. But it certainly would not take decades.

How did we find ways to put up cell phone towers everywhere so that we are now never out of touch with the world? How did we put diesel pumps for consumer use at almost every gas station, when in the past, we had to hunt around for diesel while gasoline stations were everywhere?

How have we managed to put self-checkout lanes and cash-less transactions in grocery stores? In fact, how did we put street level ATM dispensers everywhere?

Aron9000

^ Good point, putting in charging stations will be pretty easy IMO, there are already quite a few around where I live. The hard part of the electric car infrastructure will be the increased demand for electricity, thus we are going to have to build more power plants if electric cars really do take off.

Sucks if your local utility jacks up rates because they have to build a new plant for electric car drivers, especially if you don't have an electric car. It would be yet another way the average person/taxpayer is subsidizing this technology.

MattyG

This is the problem I see as well. There is no way to cope with the increased demand and certainly you can bet during a brown-out or a black-out, you resort back to good ole gas/diesel. This is something that is not being properly planned for in the bigger scheme of things. All electric is not feasible until you look at downstream architecture. It's all good in Silicon Valley or sexy videos of running around in a Tesla or even a Prius. But at the end of the day, you can plan for this but it certainly is an infrastructure issue.

mmarshall

How? Gas and diesel-pumps won't work during power failures/interruptions. (see my reply to RNM GS3 above). The only way around that would be for people to have previously stored-up supplies of gas or diesel fuel, which can sometimes be dangerous.

UDel

Gas stations can have backup generators to power pumps or other methods can be used to still access the gas that don't use electricity. Gasoline cars have much longer ranges then electric cars and it is much easier to just bring gas in to area without power to fill up a car then trying to get electricity in to a area without power to charge a bunch of electric cars.

MattyG

From time-to-time, I see guys with diesel pickups who have equipped themselves with in-bed fuel tanks. These are medium to large tanks that can hold 50-100 gallons. They give such a vehicle tremendous range. Some of them work in remote locations where you don't have gas stations or infrastructure. If you had such an outage, and there was some sort of issue - these are the only guys who could potentially drive out or get people out. Or food and supplies in.

rxonmymind

Honda had the right idea. Propane. I was this close " to buying one. The appeal to me much like electric was the ability to refuel at home. That was such a good idea and way ahead of it's time. Unfortunately, true or not I guess Honda had a few to many issues with engines warranty as the home propane was to "dirty" thus fouling up the engines. They claimed commercial propane is cleaner but not as readily available to the consumer as a fill-up type commodity. I just switched over to a gas stove as me kitchen has option for both which I'm grateful for and love it. I can easily see myself filling up at home and avoiding all gas stations for safety and convenience reason for myself and wife.

LeX2K

Liquefied gas powered car is way too dangerous in enclosed spaces even a very small leak could be deadly.

rxonmymind

Certain amount of truth to that as some underground garages won't allow them. I would almost say theat could be negated with self-sealing technology much like they have on car tires. If the warthog plane can have that I don't see why it can't be used for automotive purposes. But all that is a moot point is Honda discontinue that car in the industry didn't want to support CNG gas powered cars. As one Automotive executive said we tried and tried and tried.

Toys4RJill

What a stupid headline for this thread. Nowhere did GM say internal combustion are going to end. GM cannot go all-electric that fast. Perhaps in 30 years.

mmarshall

I agree it won't happen overnight, but, from the sounds of Mark Reuss, GM's product-head, it will be a lot quicker than 30 years. As of now, they are planning 20 electric models by 2023...that's just 5-6 years off. The rest is just a mater of time.....though, of course, the necessary infrastructure for re-charging that many vehicles will have to be in place.

https://www.wired.com/story/general-...-cars-plan-gm/

After more than a century peddling vehicles that pollute the atmosphere, General Motors is ending its relationship with gasoline and diesel. This morning, the American automotive giant announced that it is working toward an all-electric, zero-emissions future. That starts with two new, fully electric models next year—then at least 18 more by 2023.

That product onslaught puts the company at the forefront of an increasingly large crowd of automakers proclaiming the age of electricity and promising to move away from gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles. In recent months, Volvo, Aston Martin, and Jaguar Land Rover have announced similar moves. GM’s declaration, though, is particularly noteworthy because it’s among the very largest automakers on the planet. It sold 10 million cars last year, ranging from pickups to SUVs to urban runabouts.

“General Motors believes the future is all-electric,” says Mark Reuss, the company’s head of product. “We are far along in our plan to lead the way to that future world.”

Reuss did not give a date for the death knell of the GM gas- or diesel-powered car, saying the transition will happen at different speeds in different markets and regions. The new all-electric models will be a mix of battery electric cars and fuel cell-powered vehicles.

To be sure, GM’s sudden jolt of electricity is planned with its shareholders in mind. The Trump Administration may be moving to roll back fuel efficiency requirements in the US, but the rest of the world is insisting on an electric age. France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Norway have all said they plan to ban the sale of gas and diesel cars in the coming decades. More importantly, China—the world’s largest car market—and India, a rising star, plan to join them. No automaker can compete globally without a compelling stable of electric cars.

GM intends to grab as large a slice of the Chinese market as possible. It has previously announced plans to launch 10 electric or hybrid electric cars in the country by 2020. This summer, it started selling a two-seat EV there, for just $5,300. Last year, it sold more cars in China (3.6 million) than it did in the US (3 million).

The crucial question for the American automaker will be how, exactly, to make money from all these cars. By one report, GM loses $9,000 on each Chevy Bolt it sells. Reuss’ strategy hinges on bringing costs down thanks to steadily dropping battery prices, more efficient motors, and lighter cars. Massive scale and global supply chains helps, too. “This next generation will be profitable,” he says. “End of story.”

It's not impossible. “If they’ve really been laying this groundwork, they could be closer to not just having this tech but having a profitable and high volume way of supplying it," says Karl Brauer, an auto industry analyst with Kelley Blue Book.

General Motors’ history hasn’t been especially kind to electric mobility. Its invention of the automatic starter helped kill the first wave of electric cars at the start of the 20th century. This is the company that experimented with battery power in the EV-1, only to recall the two-seater from its owners, crush them all, and pile the carcasses up in a junkyard. In the first years of the 21st century, while Toyota was making hybrids popular with the Prius, GM was hawking the Hummer.

Over the past decade, the Detroit giant has positioned itself for a different sort of future. First came the hybrid electric Chevy Volt. Then came GM’s great coup, the Chevy Bolt, the 200-mile, $30,000 electric car that hit market long before Tesla’s Model 3. GM is seriously pursuing semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars. It offers the first car on US roads with vehicle-to-vehicle communication capability. Now, it talks about its plans to eliminate vehicle pollution, congestion, and traffic deaths.

“GM has the ability to get all of us to that future so much faster,” Reuss says. Now it just has to deliver—and make enough money doing it to stick around for that future.

riredale

Two related items in the Wall Street Journal in the past couple of days:

(1) Warren Buffett, who has a remarkably good investment track record, has just bought a huge stake in the Flying J/Pilot gas and diesel stations. The WSJ article mentioned that, once again, Buffett is a contrarian, betting that petroleum fuels are going to be around for many, many decades.

(2) Tesla confirmed that while they promised 1,500 Model 3's just a month or two ago, they've only delivered about 200. I have no doubt that introducing a brand-new product is challenging under the best of circumstances, but it appears to me that Musk frequently grossly overpromises. Do his followers care? Perhaps not, but history is full of visionaries who eventually crash and burn.