It's possible Tesla wouldn't have gotten over the hump without $1.5B of EV tax credits (200k x $7500), without the threat of big fines that forced competitors to buy emissions credits from Tesla, and other favorable treatment, yes.
Thanks for your understanding. Only other point: Don't forget the railroad acts after the civil war which included the government giving railroads land up to 10 miles in each direction of tracks as a way to incent railroads to build. A tremendous cooperative relationship which helped both the country spread and the railroads to profit for multiple decades into the future.
I think semi-automonous driving is greatly overblown (until they get to the point of true unlimited driverless for fleet shuttlepods, probably a decade away). But to your point, lots of people drive on highways daily too. Many commutes involve stretches of highway.
The heavier vehicle always wins in a collision, assuming similar levels of technology. That's no secret and has been true since cars were invented.
Well, again, I'm no fan of self-steering as a driver assist. I don't use it, I don't trust it, and I don't pay for Bluecruise.
The data is what it is.
This is the crux of the matter to me. To get acceptable range (meaning what a person wants when they buy an EV vs. what they need) we either need to greatly improve efficiency (mi/kWh to 4-ish or higher, up from the 3-ish that it is today), or improve energy density (which reduces battery costs and weight!) by a similar percentage. We've plateaued at roughly 300 mile EV's with roughly 100 kWh battery packs. A 300 mile EV with a 60 kWh pack could be profitable and affordable (and have a high demand, I think) as would 400 mile EV with a 100 kWh pack. But neither of those exist without significant movement on either efficiency or energy density.
Yep. Catch-22 for them. North American buyers generally want larger vehicles, and long range. Which requires a big battery pack. Which is so costly that they can't build those profitably. (Tesla has a lower cost structure and can get closer in size, but they still don't make a real SUV or pickup, just eggs and triangles.)
This looks interesting Sakuu's Metal-Free Battery Cell: Game-Changing Innovation (youtube.com)
Absolutely need to be skeptical of "breakthroughs", but there is incredible R&D being done very broadly. I think that one (or more likely combinations of several) will keep the rate of advancement in EV-applicable batteries on the same curve that's been established for nearly 2 decades now. Batteries are getting "better" (whether you measure gravimetric energy density, volumetric energy density, cost/kWh, longevity, etc.) at 5-10% per year. Advancements like the one I linked to, which are manufacturing-based rather than chemistry-based, have, IMHO, some of the greatest potential to keep the curve going. I don't think "breakthrough" is necessarily accurate to describe the above, its just solid engineering advancement. I don't believe the future is all dependent on breakthroughs. They might happen, and I hope they do, but I'd much rather see many smaller advances happening continuously across the spectrum that put all my hopes on some mythical breakthrough.
