[logicalmonster]

> If you have unlimited electricity, why bother reinventing all the infrastructure for battery powered vehicles?

To be honest, I don't understand the push for electric vehicles either. Sure, the engines are very powerful and cool. As a toy for the well-off, I get the appeal. But the possible risks and downsides from a societal perspective seem massive to me and outweigh the advantages.

> As far as I understand it, the electrical grid is not setup to handle most of society using EVs.

> Charging EVs takes too long for reliable long-distance travel. I can fill a gas tank in a couple of minutes in an emergency and keep on driving. But there's a real problem if everybody needs hours to charge when there's a finite number of chargers.

> Dense cities are not setup to handle EVs. If you live in a city apartment and park on the street, figuring out some arrangement to charge an EV in a convenient fashion is very difficult.

> When you take into account the rare earth elements that need to be mined to make EVs, I'm not sure if there's any environmental win from them even if the electricity used to power them always comes from green sources.

> I think there's a real long-term problem brewing when it comes to EV battery disposal and longevity. These batteries deteriorate over time. A 10-15 year old ICE vehicle is still very usable. But it's unknown what happens when you have millions of 10-15 year old EVs that have dying batteries. Will they be safely disposed? Are people ready to pay $10K+ to replace the batteries on an older EV?

> All modern cars have lots of software, but the amount of extra software that controls EVs due to their nature is concerning to me. It feels a lot easier for a bad software update to brick an EV, or something to go drastically wrong and make your car useless, particularly in an emergency. An ICE feels a lot more resistant to hacking and other problems that I think might become more commonplace.

Maybe some of these points have great answers, but I'm overall very skeptical of the whole movement here.

[DoreenMichele]

To be honest, I don't understand the push for electric vehicles either.

Basically, they've become economically viable due to gas prices going up. Gas prices are up due to Peak Oil. Peak Oil does not mean we are running out of oil yet. It means we are running out of cheap oil.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory

[logicalmonster]

1) EVs seeming more attractive because of gas prices is a reasonable theory. But I'd say that people who are struggling with gas prices are not going to be able to afford to buy an electric car anyway. Trans. Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently recommended that people struggling with gas buy an electric car and it was about the most out-of-touch and elitist thing I've ever seen.

2) I don't believe that gas prices are suddenly going up because peak oil theory is being vindicated. There's inflation, supply issues caused by dumb human "environmentalist" policies, as well as tensions due to Russia and other world events.

[vba616]

>Trans. Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently recommended that people struggling with gas buy an electric car

I got a hybrid, which were discounted when nobody wanted them when gas prices were in the toilet in late 2020.

A non-plug-in hybrid that gets 40-50 mpg is (or was just before the current car shortage) the most economic option according to my best calculations. Once I tried to estimate the fossil fuels that go into food and stuff and found riding a bicycle is not a lot better or worse than a 50 mpg car with one person in it.

Everybody seems to have an excuse for doing something else though. I have to admit that it took me years before I followed my own logic, but I finally did (because I found something I liked better than a Prius with similar mpg).

A non-plugin hybrid has 1% of the electric range, so I don't think the difference in battery size vs. a full electric is unimportant. Batteries get better, but the ratio, not so much.

[DoreenMichele]

Eh, I've had two college classes that covered Peak Oil. It's a very solid theory.

It's why gas prices went crazy in the 1970s, but then we discovered the Alaska oil fields and built a pipeline. Geologists are pretty confident there are no more surprise oil fields that can save us a second time. Even if we discovered crazy amounts of oil in the Antarctic or on the moon, extraction costs would be stupidly high, so it still would not bring back cheap oil.

[logicalmonster]

Whether or not the general theory of Peak Oil is correct is debatable. If that theory is correct, where we are located in that peak is also debatable.

My main question to you is this. Is the sudden spike in the recent time period just because of Peak Oil, or is it because of other factors I've mentioned? In an era of high inflation, war fears, and environmentalist policies being pushed, I think the explanation for the current gas price increase is much easier to see.

> Eh, I've had two college classes that covered Peak Oil.

Well, I've studied some economics.

Eh, maybe I'm suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect. Maybe you are. Who can tell?

[DoreenMichele]

I'm suffering from being up all night and throwing up.

You take care.

[logicalmonster]

Being sick sucks. Feel better.