The transition is inevitable… and yes, we’ll all flip to EVs, and ICEs will be rarities.
As a comparison: I remember reading about the transition from black & white photography to color, or rolls of b&w film vs. rolls of color film… and having them printed in shops, where b&w was normal and color rare, then color was normal and b&w was rare – and precisely because b&w was rare, it was also expensive which drove more customers away.
So not only will trips in ICEs need to be carefully planned, they’ll be bloody expensive.
OP probably implies petrol-based combustion engines. A hydrogen internal combustion engine (HICE) works similarly to a traditional petrol engine: hydrogen fuel is mixed with air, compressed in the cylinder, and ignited by a spark, causing combustion that drives the pistons and produces mechanical power. Current infrastructure is limited, and hydrogen fuel is expensive. But it’s a safer alternative to petroleum and intrinsically has unlimited supply, also unlike petrol.
If something like Porsche’s carbon neutral fuel becomes available for cheap the ICE might stay relevant for a long time
Edit – for all the triggered scientists in this thread; I’m not saying ICE will win and EVs will disappear. I’m not saying e-fuels are the be-all end-all solution. I’m not claiming they’re more efficient than electricity. All I’m saying is that ICE vehicles may stick around for decades if not longer. We simply don’t know.
A lot of comments assume the switch will be because of environmental concerns. The switch will happen because 99% of EV drivers love their car (even those who don’t give about the environment) and will never go back. Meanwhile, about half of ICE drivers are considering an EV as their next car. (I would argue the other half has fallen to FUD.)
EVs will continue to experience rapid improvements (unlike ICE), but people already love them.
My car is transportation. And I have very specific needs of my transportation. I really don’t care about what engine is in it. There are things I need to haul, and I need to do trips of between 1000-1800 miles often enough to be considered common. Right now I depend on the infrastructure that exists (gas stations), and the fairly quick was I’m ready to go again (pumping gas). Extend those stops by 10 minutes? Sure, every 400 miles I’ll be happy to sacrifice the extra time. But add an hour per stop, or every hundred miles? That makes the trip unsustainable.
For EVs to be common place, they’ll need to be charged as quickly as one can fill a tank of gasoline. How close are we to enough charging stations to service every car, and the technology to have them charged fully almost instantaneously?
I don’t see a switch to only electric cars in my lifetime, I’m currently 28. I don’t think EV’s are going anywhere, but I don’t feel ICE vehicles are going anywhere either. Manufacturers are still spending money on the next generation ICE’s such as GM. I feel hybrids are going to get very, very common, and popular for the average consumer in the next 10ish years.
The switch over will be VERY expensive and time-consuming as well. Everyone’s house will minimally need 1 charging port depending on how many vehicles you own. Hotels, apartment complexes, current gas stations, and parking lots will most likely need charging ports. We are still a long way away from being able to have a full transition to where I don’t think I will even be alive for it.
That’s already the case for some types of combustion cars – liquid petroleum gas/LPG cars used to be decently common in Australia due to I think environmental reasons and Australia having car manufacturing to quickly make the swap over, but as that industry was shut down and it wasn’t profitable for international brands to make them for such a small market, so card using LPG in the private sector have dwindled to the point where finding it available as fuel is getting really hard and requires planning around
Hell I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already hard for cars that require other specific types of fuel, especially weirder sorts of petrol in diesel heavy markets
The takes in this thread are some of the wrongest lol. Not sure if it’s because it’s this sub. Everyone is on about how long it takes to charge but I haven’t had to make a dedicated charging stop in over 6 months. I plug in at home or at work where my car stays for hours at a time. My car has had 4% battery degradation in 2.5 years and batteries will last 200k miles before they degrade more than 80% not to mention the range on my car covers 5 days of typical usage for me. Semi trucks are going to run on electric soon and people are still going to be saying “but it’s not enough range for me”, “but it takes me too long to charge”, “but I can’t tow loads”.
EVs are going to be the norm the world over and the US will be stuck a decade behind.
The difference is, with an ICE I can throw several 5 gallon fuel cans in the bed of my truck and extend my range. But with an EV I have to find a charging station or I’m stranded. And if I do run out of gas I can go get fuel and bring it back to my vehicle, but with an EV I have to tow the whole vehicle to the charger.
When EVs can refuel in 5 minutes and the stations are close enough together even in rural areas to replace gas stations they might be a practical option for all. For now, they are only really for those who stay local to home, in an urban area only, or rarely wander away from major interstates.
The electric grid could barely handle 3 days of a heatwave in Metro NY area. You know nothing about power generation/delivery if you really think we are going all electric soon.
EVs will take over, if only because we are approaching the point where their range will exceed what you can reasonably drive in a day. 800 mile range vehicles are on the near horizon that aren’t even weird hypermiling oriented cars. Huawei is promising their solid state battery will have 1800 miles of range, though this feels like an overpromise, or a distant reality.
If any of the more interesting battery technologies actually come through, this range could sound quaint (or much more likely, they’ll be limited to up to around 1000m but with smaller and lighter battery packs).
But even so, if you can get to just a thousand mile range while still keeping charging under an hour for the highest speeds, you’re still talking less time than you’d normally spend with an ICE in a gas station.
Once we hit the point where 500-750m ranges are common for average EVs (up to around 35-40k) with around half an hour to charge to that point, you’ll see the death of the ICE in new production hit rapidly. Most people claim range anxiety is the main driving force. When you can go nearly a quarter of the way across the US in a single charge, while ICEs are still typically around 300m, it’s not even going to be a question for everyone who doesn’t have their manliness tied up in how loud their stupid car is.
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The transition is inevitable… and yes, we’ll all flip to EVs, and ICEs will be rarities.
As a comparison: I remember reading about the transition from black & white photography to color, or rolls of b&w film vs. rolls of color film… and having them printed in shops, where b&w was normal and color rare, then color was normal and b&w was rare – and precisely because b&w was rare, it was also expensive which drove more customers away.
So not only will trips in ICEs need to be carefully planned, they’ll be bloody expensive.
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OP probably implies petrol-based combustion engines. A hydrogen internal combustion engine (HICE) works similarly to a traditional petrol engine: hydrogen fuel is mixed with air, compressed in the cylinder, and ignited by a spark, causing combustion that drives the pistons and produces mechanical power. Current infrastructure is limited, and hydrogen fuel is expensive. But it’s a safer alternative to petroleum and intrinsically has unlimited supply, also unlike petrol.
If something like Porsche’s carbon neutral fuel becomes available for cheap the ICE might stay relevant for a long time
Edit – for all the triggered scientists in this thread; I’m not saying ICE will win and EVs will disappear. I’m not saying e-fuels are the be-all end-all solution. I’m not claiming they’re more efficient than electricity. All I’m saying is that ICE vehicles may stick around for decades if not longer. We simply don’t know.
A lot of comments assume the switch will be because of environmental concerns. The switch will happen because 99% of EV drivers love their car (even those who don’t give about the environment) and will never go back. Meanwhile, about half of ICE drivers are considering an EV as their next car. (I would argue the other half has fallen to FUD.)
EVs will continue to experience rapid improvements (unlike ICE), but people already love them.
This is about 100 years or more from now. If ever.
My car is transportation. And I have very specific needs of my transportation. I really don’t care about what engine is in it. There are things I need to haul, and I need to do trips of between 1000-1800 miles often enough to be considered common. Right now I depend on the infrastructure that exists (gas stations), and the fairly quick was I’m ready to go again (pumping gas). Extend those stops by 10 minutes? Sure, every 400 miles I’ll be happy to sacrifice the extra time. But add an hour per stop, or every hundred miles? That makes the trip unsustainable.
For EVs to be common place, they’ll need to be charged as quickly as one can fill a tank of gasoline. How close are we to enough charging stations to service every car, and the technology to have them charged fully almost instantaneously?
I don’t see a switch to only electric cars in my lifetime, I’m currently 28. I don’t think EV’s are going anywhere, but I don’t feel ICE vehicles are going anywhere either. Manufacturers are still spending money on the next generation ICE’s such as GM. I feel hybrids are going to get very, very common, and popular for the average consumer in the next 10ish years.
The switch over will be VERY expensive and time-consuming as well. Everyone’s house will minimally need 1 charging port depending on how many vehicles you own. Hotels, apartment complexes, current gas stations, and parking lots will most likely need charging ports. We are still a long way away from being able to have a full transition to where I don’t think I will even be alive for it.
That’s already the case for some types of combustion cars – liquid petroleum gas/LPG cars used to be decently common in Australia due to I think environmental reasons and Australia having car manufacturing to quickly make the swap over, but as that industry was shut down and it wasn’t profitable for international brands to make them for such a small market, so card using LPG in the private sector have dwindled to the point where finding it available as fuel is getting really hard and requires planning around
Hell I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already hard for cars that require other specific types of fuel, especially weirder sorts of petrol in diesel heavy markets
The takes in this thread are some of the wrongest lol. Not sure if it’s because it’s this sub. Everyone is on about how long it takes to charge but I haven’t had to make a dedicated charging stop in over 6 months. I plug in at home or at work where my car stays for hours at a time. My car has had 4% battery degradation in 2.5 years and batteries will last 200k miles before they degrade more than 80% not to mention the range on my car covers 5 days of typical usage for me. Semi trucks are going to run on electric soon and people are still going to be saying “but it’s not enough range for me”, “but it takes me too long to charge”, “but I can’t tow loads”.
EVs are going to be the norm the world over and the US will be stuck a decade behind.
The difference is, with an ICE I can throw several 5 gallon fuel cans in the bed of my truck and extend my range. But with an EV I have to find a charging station or I’m stranded. And if I do run out of gas I can go get fuel and bring it back to my vehicle, but with an EV I have to tow the whole vehicle to the charger.
Some day.
When EVs can refuel in 5 minutes and the stations are close enough together even in rural areas to replace gas stations they might be a practical option for all. For now, they are only really for those who stay local to home, in an urban area only, or rarely wander away from major interstates.
Tell that to any cold country. Here in Canada I see EVs that just straight up do not start in the winter. -40 makes the batteries sad.
The electric grid could barely handle 3 days of a heatwave in Metro NY area. You know nothing about power generation/delivery if you really think we are going all electric soon.
EVs will take over, if only because we are approaching the point where their range will exceed what you can reasonably drive in a day. 800 mile range vehicles are on the near horizon that aren’t even weird hypermiling oriented cars. Huawei is promising their solid state battery will have 1800 miles of range, though this feels like an overpromise, or a distant reality.
If any of the more interesting battery technologies actually come through, this range could sound quaint (or much more likely, they’ll be limited to up to around 1000m but with smaller and lighter battery packs).
But even so, if you can get to just a thousand mile range while still keeping charging under an hour for the highest speeds, you’re still talking less time than you’d normally spend with an ICE in a gas station.
Once we hit the point where 500-750m ranges are common for average EVs (up to around 35-40k) with around half an hour to charge to that point, you’ll see the death of the ICE in new production hit rapidly. Most people claim range anxiety is the main driving force. When you can go nearly a quarter of the way across the US in a single charge, while ICEs are still typically around 300m, it’s not even going to be a question for everyone who doesn’t have their manliness tied up in how loud their stupid car is.
I hope someday gas stations will have fully charged batteries on standby for exchange that you can pop into your car for the price of a tank of gas