This thread got REALLY long so I didn't read every response. But I did want to add that Tesla did have a program where you could pull up to a station and swap your depleted battery for a full one. They did this because people (who didn't own Teslas as it turned out) complained about that. So Elon Musk implemented that and guess what? No one used it, lol. So it obviously isn't a problem. Personally I would've loved that because I could swap out my old battery for a hopefully new one! I don't own a Tesla, but that's the only reason I would've used such a station.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/battery-swap-pilot-program

 

Better Place tried it in Israel 10ish years ago. They're out of business now, but the concept was pretty cool. The problem is the cost of infrastructure is much higher for something like that then creating charging stations. You have to forecast how many battery packs to stock, you have to store them, you'll probably need at least 1-2 people on site to manage the station, etc. Also, while battery degradation isn't a concern of mine, I know how much I can get out of my car given the season, state of charge, etc. because I drove it to that point. If I had a battery that still had 3% battery degradation, did a swap, and ended up with one that had 10% degradation, I'd be more than a little peeved.

 

No offense, but you may need the stimulation of driving or crossword puzzles to "keep you sharp" but I don't lol. Life comes at me 120 MPH every minute of every day, plenty to keep me sharp. Driving is just a routine thing for me that for most of my day I'd be happy to give up to technology. When I want to go out for a fun drive, I can still do that.

Oh totally. I often wish we weren't so accessible, but it is what it is.

 

Well, you get paid to be accessible. Haha. Higher the pay, the more accessible you become. I can't remember a vacation where I didn't have at least a couple meetings virtually that I had to attend.

 

Oh, without a doubt. I always say, they don't just give money away, if you want to make a lot of money there are ALWAYS big tradeoffs you have to deal with.

 

I have two cars - one very old ICE car that is only still around because I'm passing it on to my younger son when he get's his drivers license. It doesn't get driven by either my wife or I. So technically I have only one car that is an EV. Once you own an EV, you will know that charging is definitely NOT a concern.

 

thank you so much for sharing your EV experience! sounds awesome. again you're in the ideal place to have that setup. would love to hear about your X experience (maybe pm or separate thread) pros/cons/likes/dislikes/issues, etc.

at a high level as to they 'why', the oil business in particular is pretty nasty or sometimes horrifically nasty (exxon valdez, bp rig explosion, etc). and shipping thick black goo drilled out of the ground often MILES below, and then sending that to refineries hundreds or thousands of miles away, and then sending the refined fuels/oils via ship tankers, truck tankers, or pipelines to where they need to go (often thousands of miles away) seems like a LUDICROUSLY inefficient way to do things, but since there's been no alternative to it, the world has made it work, and it's pretty astonishing. we take for granted filling a car at the conveniently local gas station without thinking of the insane effort it took to make that possible. worse, the environmental damage, not just geological, but obviously emissions too. again, through tech and regulation that's become FAR less of an issue per vehicle/use but the numbers of vehicles, ships, planes, etc. keeps increasing, so it's pretty intractable. container cargo ships criss crossing the world powered by diesel are an environmental obscenity but again, there's been no other options. maybe eventually a hyperloop across the oceans will eliminate a lot of that.

at a high level for EVs or electricity generally, the sun's energy is FREE and we should use it! no digging it out of the ground. no transporting it. it's kind of a no brainer. until recently historically it just hasn't been efficient enough but the tech is improving rapidly and then there's the 'storage problem' for when it's not sunny, but even that is slowly being solved. it's pretty easy on a house, but harder for a large scale use, but in australia and other places tesla and others are building massive battery banks. there will be other solutions.

obviously there's other 'clean' means of creating electricity like hydroelectric, wind, waves, and there no doubt will be others.

so there's the "real case as to WHY" we should a) end mass scale use of fossil fuels and b) switch to electricity.

right but it's not JUST about the US. the whole world has to lessen its reliance on fossil fuels, especially coal. unfortunately china, due to its insatiably growing demand for energy continues to make new coal plants.

see above.

you may well be right on both fronts but that alone doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

and the FF industry has been honest? only through litigation! again i'm not down on ICE vehicles, and i'm not ready for an EV myself, but that case gets more and more compelling, for more and more people, by the day. arguments against it are a bit like people clinging to land lines or DVDs because they don't like cell phones or streaming video.

you enjoy driving them recreationally. i assume you're not stuck in massive daily slog traffic or other trips that you really don't WANT to take. if anything, COVID has made the country more divided with 'knowledge' workers able to work from home and the rest still having to drive somewhere (or take public transportation) to clean places, make food, tend to the sick, etc. for those who HAVE to drive, self-driving cars will be one of the greatest liberating things ever. even commercial truck drivers, who no doubt will become endangered, will be forced to do something healthier (driving for a living is VERY unhealthy not to mention dangerous). but like you, i enjoy driving my sports car for fun, but thankfully, i don't have to do it every day.

and 10 years ago you couldn't ask your phone "where's the nearest starbucks?" you're truly underestimating (or just not understanding) the pace of change and the coming AI complete transformation of everything for good and bad.

i believe you are doing the same, only seeing it from what car tech is TODAY. in 5 years, it will be completely different.

respectfully, as shown by your love of old 'retro' cars, like evitzee you're not keen on the rapid changes we're seeing, that are coming, like it or not. and again, if there's a cleaner alternative to the oil/gas industry, i'm all for it.

driving does require skill, but as steve points out, not just him, but MOST knowledge workers today need to be available at all hours to respond to texts/emails/virtual meetings/websites, etc. driving becomes simply a waste of time unless it's recreational.

as far as staying sharp, as you say, use any number of the zillion brain training apps, plus physical exercise, plus forums like this!

depends. if you're well paid, you can always hire minions to be accessible for you. or eventually, bots.

that's exactly why i left the big corporate world. a 'vacation' with virtual work meetings isn't a vacation. now self employed, obviously when i go on vacation i still get email/texts/calls, etc. but i can choose to ignore them if i want.

 

Yup. Always happens. Probably one of the worst was a few years ago when we were in Hawaii, and my wife had a 2 hour meeting that she had to attend at 2am.....

But agreed wholeheartedly with the "always on, always connected" nature now. Having now worked from home for the past year, it's kind of astonishing to look back and see how much of a drain on productivity the daily commute really is. Obviously not commuting at all is one way to eliminate that drain, but that doesn't work for everybody. Being able to be fully productive while on the road, thanks to autonomous driving would be a solution for those that have no choice but to travel.

 

I have the opposite opinion of self-employment. My friends that have their own business work waaaaay harder than I do. In the end, if I don't attend a meeting, i have minions to cover my back but if the business is mine and I blow something off, it comes back to me as the owner which is way riskier. Also, good post on why an oil based transportation backbone is absolutely bonkers in the long run. We need to begin this transition now and we will all learn, that resistance is futile

 

Yeah the storage piece of it is a solved problem even at large scale, just with limited adoption at this point. A friend of mine spent a few years working for a company that designed, installed, and supported battery systems for industrial customers. The basic concept is these companies would have huge factory campuses that would charge their batteries from the grid overnight while they were idle, then disconnect from the grid in the morning and operate the entire campus from stored power all day long. Power utilities give them HUGE rebates, in some cases resulting in net cash inflow from the utility to the business. The reason for this is these systems help level out the overall load on the grid over the 24h day, and reduce the delta between peak and minimum usage. That, in turn, reduces the need for peaking plants that are incredibly expensive to operate on a per MWh basis, compared to the baseline plants that run all the time.

 

Obviously it wasn't a problem at the time for all seven people that had EVs back then. There are companies now that are restarting this model, and in the long run it might be a lot more viable than chargers.

 

understand it can be that way, but if someone loves what they do, more power to them. i've been more focused on recurring revenue in recent years, and delegating more, and it's making things easier.

thank you! yes indeed.

it may be 'solved' but i imagine it's HUGELY expensive and obviously can take up a ton of space. but as with everything this too shall improve.

 

This is true, but when you work for yourself it feels different than it does when you work for someone else.

 

Absolutely! Much much better to work for yourself, especially when you love the job. I imagine i'll have to get my own business someday as I'll age out of corporate. Sad truth in most corporations...you get too expensive as you climb the ladder.

Maybe i'll buy up land around gas stations and put up EV chargers...

 

My accountant says something that is very true. Every day the decision to start his own business is the best and the worst decision hes ever made LOL