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Comment by aurizon | Hacker News Reader

We are going to see a culling of the herd over the next 20 years. Electric will expand, gas and gas taxes will increase dramatically as the CO2 reduction's urgency emerges. Smaller engines might do better - huge gas hogs might not last as prices increase and demand decreases. Many will buy used cars and car lives will increase as more repair what they have.

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Strangely, though, the opposite has been the trend for the last decade.

There will be a tipping point. I just don't think we'll see it until they start ripping up gas stations.

The first time a gas station is replaced by a row of electric chargers, half of our country is going to lose their farking minds.

I think you’ll far more often see gas stations replaced by other uses. It’s too easy to install residential chargers.

Yes, I agree, it all depends on the power rate. A savvy owner will install a home power bank that can be charges at the best rate, and have a faster charge capability. I expect many stations will be converted to the highest best use for the property. Chargers do not need prime strip locations because the cars will come to them, so they can spot them in here and there as the power distribution grid warrants. Of course, power sellers greed will want to grab some of this, so I anticipate regulators will also have a role.

Where I live (Montreal), a few gaz stations have been replaced by condos. There are still way too many stations, and they always seem empty, but presumably still lucrative.

Outside the cities, increasingly gaz stations also have charging stations. It only takes a bit of space, and it's subsidized.

10% of new vehicle sales are EVs (in the province), and it has doubled for the past 5 years. We're getting there :)

Yes Quebec has very cheap electricity until about the middle 2030's when the cheap power gets turned off.

> when the cheap power gets turned off

What does this mean?

Nuclear decommissions? Fossil fuel shuttering? ...?

When the cheap deal on Churchill falls expires. When renewed, as per the agreement, the price will be adjusted and Newfoundland and Labrador will get more $$, and they will be able to export power via UHV cable to the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_Falls_Generating_Sta...

I think there is an overlaying of various trends. The first successful ecars - the Teslas - have shown the way. The first ecars were made to fail so that the car makers could cite the lack of demand. We will not see Detroit and others making serious contenders (once their fires from being too cheap are done)

I don’t necessarily agree, since this depends so much on the political agenda and peoples willingness to accept a lower standard of living.

The energy density of fossil fuels is remarkably more energy dense than the best battery tech we can come up with, and I don’t see any scenario where the grid supports the average person filling up the equivalent of ~20 gallons of gas or ~600kwh of energy in under 5 minutes without superconductors and some other Star Trek league tech. Now expand that to trucks and aircraft that fill up hundreds or thousands of gallons of gas in a matter of minutes; it’s just a complete fantasy that EVs will meet our transportation needs at this point.

The average commute is 25 miles round-trip. Less than 2% drive > 100 miles a day, and far less than 1% drive 150+ miles.

Most EVs have a 300+ mile range with several pushing 350. It would work as a commuting car for 99% of the population without needing to charge except at home overnight, and the average person (25 mile round trip) can go over a week between charges.

Saying EVs can't replace gasoline-powered cars is nonsense.

Trucks - same thing. The Tesla Semi is said to have a 500 mile range on one charge fully loaded with 80k lbs, and it's the first iteration.

Aircraft - no, li-ion is too heavy. We know it won't work for planes. But replacing gas-powered cars and trucks would make a big impact.

I'm curious if we can synthesize hydrocarbon fuels to meet air travel demands. It seems like a difficult (and expensive) process to scale but if we don't have the surface fleet to worry about is it feasible?

For this to matter, you'd have to drive your car more than its capacity per day. Otherwise you just plug it in overnight which is far easier than even filling it up at a gas station once a week.

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