# EV only for specific niche?



## tommypress (Jul 20, 2016)

Is the concept of EVs not as great as it sounds? 

The idea of EVs has been said to take over the automobile industry by storm but its yet to be seen how far its stretch will reach beyond a particular niche. Recent news is also stating concerns that the alternate powered vehicles will only apply to a certain category of the population. What are your thoughts?


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

I would have said the other way around
In another decade IC vehicles will be seem as the "niche" vehicles although with the numbers already built they will still be in the majority


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

Adoption is starting out slow but it's growing steadily. Interest is high and surprisingly broad, as Tesla's model 3 pre-orders show. 

EVs will get cheaper, inevitably, and then the economics will take over. Small commuter vehicles will be the first to fall to EVs, but other categories will fall soon afterward. 

A steep carbon tax would help a lot too.

There's no way countries are meeting their CO2 reduction targets without a steady and fairly rapid adoption of EVs. You can expect subsidies on EVs to remain in place for some time as a result.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Moltenmetal said:


> A steep carbon tax would help a lot too.


Someone's been drinking their daily political kool-aid. The only people carbon taxes HELP are politicians. Everyone else is harmed by them.

You were correct on the other point, however - EVs will soon be cheaper than ICE vehicles. Once that happens consumers will dump gas guzzlers like a hot potato.


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

I just realize that a market which requires a technology which can have near zero emissions to compete with another which treats our atmosphere as a free public sewer is badly distorted. The market needs a signal to fix that distortion, or we'll be dealing with the collective costs of years worth of unnecessary damage as a result of a delayed transition away from burning dinosaurs. That's true irrespective of whether GHG emissions are a minor or a huge problem. ICE tailpipes still discharge shit that kills people before their time, whether CO2 is irreversibly altering our climate or not.


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## rmay635703 (Oct 23, 2008)

Moltenmetal said:


> I just realize that a market which requires a technology which can have near zero emissions to compete with another which treats our atmosphere as a free public sewer is badly distorted.
> 
> 
> > Increase the gas taxes
> ...


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Moltenmetal said:


> I just realize that a market which requires a technology which can have near zero emissions to compete with another which treats our atmosphere as a free public sewer is badly distorted.


I understand your feeling, but the facts simply do not substantiate that viewpoint. We've already done the heavy lifting on emissions in most of the world (China, India, others are still a problem), and the air is cleaner today in most parts of the world than it was in the 70's. Ergo, nature is capable of cleaning the air faster than we are putting stuff in today for everything except CO2. For that if you accept the U.N. Report as truth then what we are seeing today is net benefit from the additional CO2 (e.g. Global Greening), and the temperatures will not go up enough before we switch to EVs to become harmful. So, in the long run the CO2 is all benefit, no harm.


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## Matej (Dec 4, 2015)

There are several cities in Europe that have been experimenting with programs where on one day of the week they do not allow combustion vehicles to be driven in the city centre or in specific parts of town, while others have just permanently made portions of their cities off-limits to anything but electric vehicles. Overall, the programs have been hailed as success.

It seems that the average person does not necessarily care about the long-term effects, but they do like the immediate benefits, those being ridding their neighborhoods of the noise and smell associated with combustion cars.


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