They will stop selling but the dominant car will still be ICE. Most people are renters and they cant charge at home so its not even going to be an option to get an EV. With the number of EV cars going up year over year there will be less and less charging spaces which are already getting cramped as is.
The Build Back Better Act that passed the House contained provisions that made massive investments in building out a nationwide supercharging network. Ideally, in the next couple years, we can bring that back to get a head start on building out a charging network.
For renters, I don't really see this as being a problem. Most people who rent apartments or whatnot have cars that have gas tanks with roughly a 300 mile range (give or take), and can't refill their gas tank at home. They still have to go to a gas station which takes 5-10 minutes. In the same way, they can stop by a location with a charging station to do the same. I definitely think the time per fill-up and range per charge isn't quite as efficient as a gas vehicle, which most rapid chargers doing somewhere around 100-200 miles of range in 20-30 minutes.
But the rapid charging network locations doesn't have to be the same as what we have now either. We don't have to create specific gas stations just for refueling cars. We can build out super chargers pretty much anywhere where there's a nearby electrical grid. A lot of restaurants have charging stations, malls, libraries, and I've even seen chargers at like McDonald's or a local grocery store. The point is, we need chargers everywhere, but we actually CAN start putting chargers everywhere. Their footprint is far smaller than an entire gas station, the distribution is more distributed, and people can start refueling their cars no matter what else they're doing like running errands or grabbing a bite.
Yes, apartment complexes can and should be installing charging stations, but there's no reason to avoid a transition to an all EV industry simply because they haven't yet and need to.
I can’t think of anywhere I’ve read about where the infrastructure can support BAU + a majority EV owners.
Not to mention the problems Munkus brought up with battery disposal, costs etc.
The recycling issue is a problem. Though I'd argue that burning fossil fuels until we run out and the planet burns up is the far bigger issue. Right now, several of the auto manufacturers have been looking at battery recycling as a potential avenue towards decreasing the dependency on rare earth minerals needed to produce batteries now. Like GM's Ultium Cell technology, which GM estimates they can plan on recovering 95% of the materials during the recycling process to produce new Ultium batteries.
GM is hoping to be involved in the EV battery recycling process, partnering with Canadian-based battery recycling company Li-Cycle to recycle up to 100 percent of the material scrap from its battery cell manufacturing processes. The recycling process will allow GM’s Ultium Cells LLC battery subsidiary to recycle important and expensive battery materials, including cobalt, nickel, lithium, graphite, copper, manganese and aluminum. Ninety-five percent of these materials can be used in the production of new batteries or for adjacent industries, GM says.
GM has recycled 100 percent of the batteries it has received back from customers through warranty claims, trade-ins or leases since 2013. In fact, most current GM EVs are repaired with refurbished packs when they experience a battery problem – a practice that will likely continue and expand as more GM EVs hit the market in the coming years.
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As for the grid and its ability to support EV vehicles, as you mentioned, we have problems with our aging power grid already. Texas, quite famously, has had some pretty extensive and serious outages recently and at the same time prides itself on avoiding evil federal government "regulation" with laughable results. But even in "pro regulation" environments like California they have struggled with their grid.
Lake Mead is getting close to having to shut down due to a lack of water, which won't help Las Vegas any. But some of these grid challenges can be mitigated through distributed power generation like adding solar panels to everyone's rooftops. In a net metering scenario, with a big enough array, you can pretty much power a home just with the sunlight that hits its roof most days, sending excess back into the grid. Add a battery backup solution and you can charge a car overnight. Minimizing draw on the network.
Does it fully and perfectly off set the need to replace aging infrastructure and solve for problems like power generation during ice storms and when there's excessive cloud cover? No. But we have those problems right now. I don't think something not being a perfect silver bullet for all scenarios doesn't mean we don't still do the work anyways.
We need to improve storage and we definitely need more nuke plants and people to stop with the NIMBY bullshit.