Until the manufacturers agree on specs that allow for a relatively quick exchange of batteries, electric cars will be tied to their home base due to the length of time required for recharging.
40k will get you a used one right now. New is around 55k. Then you need a better charging system at your home for another 3 to 5 grand. Your looking at well over a grand a month for a car payment. Sorry most lower middle class people can’t afford that. Rents are higher than ever. A 3 bedroom around here is over a grand a month.
This should tell you how bad it’s getting. My boss was just bought out not for his customer base but for the fact he has fuel hedged for it was 4 years but the oil company has screamed force majorue and made it 2 years locked in prices. He got bought out for that reason alone for 50 percent more than the carrier was worth we think as he swore he’d never sell for less than that. Some place out of Canada bought us and another Illinois bulk hauler called A&R and merged us into Quantix.
Speaking of which, does anyone know what the plans are for dealing with worn-out electric car batteries? Can they be recycled or are they likely to end up in landfills?
I’m asking seriously by the way, I’m not trying to be a wise-guy.
One of many unacknowledged elephants in the room…
Strange you should mention that. RPS in Fullerton has a plan in place to provide and maintain the colossal number of cells necessary for a heavy-rail storage system on a commuter locomotive by taking scrapped batteries apart and reusing the ‘better’ cells and other architecture. (Presumably they will also assume all the risks and costs of handling the batteries, make deals with yards and dealers, etc. to be a one-stop solution for as many of the batteries as are salvaged … equally presumably they can recover the cost of doing this in dealing with local authorities, in areas such as ecological good-neiborliness, subsidies to promote full vehicle ‘electrification’, and passing along costs to the district(s) that buy RPS locomotive systems.
That was the cause of that fire in Morris IL a while back. A company that was going to redo car battery packs along with other lithium battery packs. Well 25 tons of their inventory decided that it needed to go up in flames. RPS better have one hell of a good legal team especially in CA as that place will need it.
Tesla don’t make farm equipment. Or construction equipment. Or aircraft.
The “incredible transition” is going to be for everybody to do with less.
Like the electric vehicles in the early 1900s which were marketed as a way to keep the ladies from traveling too far.