[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by ldjessee00

I suppose Japan and Europe in general are irrelevant as well?

Could anything I said even taken wildly out of context imply that's what I think of Japan and Europe?

Back to the context in which I responded, Norway has 50% EV sales because they massively penalize other vehicles and subsidize EVs. Drop all of those penalties/subsidies and you think we'd see 50% sales? They aren't better people, they just value liberty less. Perhaps since their largest industry is petroleum, they need to drive expensive EVs to distract us from their "sins".

I have an electric car that does great as a commuter, and is actually a better than another small car I bought in the past to fill the same role.

No doubt. If you were a regular, you'd know I'm a huge fan of EVs and have been planning to get one for local travel.

Batteries are terrible at what metric compared to what?

In comparison to ICE vehicles, a battery is the equivalent of a fuel tank, and they are terrible in nearly every metric compared to a fuel tank. Batteries are like a $10,000 fuel tank that takes ages to fill, has less range, requires environmental conditioning (heating/cooling/vibration reduction), diminishes in capacity over time, is heavy, and takes up a lot of space.

Sales of ICE cars are dropping and EVs sales are increasing. I have not found anything that says EVs were 1% of car sales in the US for 2019. Where did you get this information?

I'm going to need you to show your work. US automotive sales reached 17.3M and BEV sales were around 0.26M, or about 1.5% of sales.

EV sales in the US is down 10% from last year, and global sales are also down about 10%.

https://insideevs.com/news/343998/mo...les-scorecard/

Hahaha, the comment about technology stagnating, now I am not sure if you are just trolling me or not...

Processor speed hasn't increased since 2005, and the pace of transistor shrinking has massively slowed, and is about to halt altogether in the next few years.

The law of diminishing returns means that it takes more and more effort to get less and less benefit.

Sure, we'll continue to see advances in all areas of technology, especially in bio-engineering, but there is no guarantee that batteries can be made much better than they currently are. I'd be happy to be wrong, but the fact that money is being spent to develop technology is not cause to celebrate... and in most areas of technology, the pace of innovation will slow.

To allow for true high speed trains, the rail system has to be upgraded. Like no road/track crossings...Curves have to be more open.. These kind of improvements to the infrastructure as well as train traffic control and trains in general.

Japan and China are building maglev trains. Magnetic Levitation... We could implement these things, but we have not. And yes, it would cost, but would it cost as much as maintaining the national highway system? Would it cost as much as the F-22 or F-35 programs? I bring them up, as they are trillion dollar projects that we, as a nation, paid for. If the US wanted to start a program to upgrade its rail infrastructure to even just highspeed rail standards, we could do so. It might actually help the economy... but we would still be behind and not the leaders.. which right now seem to be Japan and China's maglev trains.

You've already answered why we don't have more extensive train infrastructure and gimmicks like floating trains; cost. Even with our cheap infrastructure it's not profitable for human transport. How would making everything orders of magnitude more expensive result in profitability? Why should the US care to be a world leader in floating trains (granted, it is a neat trick)?

The highway and road infrastructure is needed regardless of how extensive the rail system is, so it doesn't make sense to talk in terms of shifting funds away from road infrastructure and into trains. I'm not taking a train from my house to all the places I travel.

National defense is among the only and greatest purposes of the federal government. Which car you drive is among the lowest. I agree that we probably spend too much on national defense, and what we spend goes towards dumb things like expensive piloted jet fighters, but the choice was never new jets, or floating trains for everyone.

When I was in Korea, the train system was better than it was where I came from... at the time atleast. It is only since then did I come to find out that Indiana actually had several commuter train systems that brought people 30 to 50 miles from the surrounding areas to Indianapolis everyday... But that was before WW2.

South Korea has a population greater than California in the area roughly the size of Indiana, our 38th largest state. Those conditions necessitate expensive transportation infrastructure, and it becomes economically feasible since they don't have as much ground to cover, and a greater number of people use it.

Being envious of mass transit infrastructure due to very high population density seems odd to me, but some people like living elbow to elbow.

I used to think plugin hybrid would be good enough, but once it was pointed out that vehicles are lugging around two different systems to do the same thing, hampering both, I realized they were just not good enough. Pure EVs is the way to go.

I used to believe pure EV was the way to go, then as I gained knowledge came to realize that plug-in hybrids are probably the superior bridge technology. The battery is the most expensive, worst part of an EV. Minimizing the most expensive, worst part of a vehicle makes sense. A hybrid maximizes the strengths of both power plants; the power and efficiency of electric motors, and the energy density and speed of refilling of an ICE.

While I and a few other EV purists may be content with a "pure EV", most other consumers likely aren't. We aren't 5-10 years away from pure EVs dominating the market. My best guess is 15-20.