California moves to end sales of new gas-powered cars

[healey36]

Definitely has that 1999 dot-com, eating-the-seed-corn feel bout it. GM will probably sink billions into something worth far less. I test drove a Chevy Bolt and it was pretty nice. Chevy should promote the hell out of that while developing their electric truck.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I thought electric vehicles still needed petroleum being burned to create the power, in addition to, if not in larger proportions than, what wind-wheels and waterfalls can generate.

Plus, effective batteries that can provide a journey longer than 3hrs, with a trip-interrupting multi-hour charge-up , have not been invented/perfected yet . Yes? No?

[chuck]

Plus, effective batteries that can provide a journey longer than 3hrs, with a trip-interrupting multi-hour charge-up , have not been invented/perfected yet . Yes? No?

No. The battery packs in most of the newer cars can provide charges for longer than 4 hours. If you want to see how far the electrics have come check out some of the YouTube video's done by the former TopGear guys James May and Richard Hammond. If you have access to a "super charger" you can fully recharge in the time it takes to get lunch. Not much different than stopping for gas and getting lunch. Super charger stations are only just becoming common in the US, particularly in the north east and west coasts. Rufus is correct that their needs to be some kind of standardization on the plugs, kind of like NEMA does for home circuits.

I thought electric vehicles still needed petroleum being burned to create the power, in addition to, if not in larger proportions than, what wind-wheels and waterfalls can generate.

Most of our electric power is coming from natural gas. Not great but not as bad as oil and definitely better than coal. Actually a lot of our electricity is from Hydro, just not our Hydro. We import a tremendous amount of electricity from Canada, mainly from Ontario and Quebec. There are huge hydro plants in the northern wilderness of those two provinces. A lot of our plants are being used for peaking purposes. The efficiency of wind and solar has increased significantly as has the overall battery technologies. It is now economically feasible to collect the energy and store it and then move it around.

GM had made a major announcement about electric vehicles early this year or possibly late last year? They fully intend to phase out internal combustion engines well before 2035. They plan to have 20 new ev's by 2023 using their stackable Ultium battery packs and a standardized platform with nineteen "modules" of power train/battery combinations.

Oh. So the California announcement is kind of yawner. I'm more concerned about actually making to 2035 than the availability of electric cars by that time.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Excellent, Chuck! I much appreciate such an informative, authoritative update to my understanding . Thank you!
Murph

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I thought electric vehicles still needed petroleum being burned to create the power, in addition to, if not in larger proportions than, what wind-wheels and waterfalls can generate.

Plus, effective batteries that can provide a journey longer than 3hrs, with a trip-interrupting multi-hour charge-up , have not been invented/perfected yet . Yes? No?

Chick has it right and you're more than a little out of date still on the battery tech which is moving forward at a pretty good clip.

Natural gas has all sorts of advantages not the least of which might be overall cost effectiveness. Right now very hard to compete with and oil/coal are effectively not even in the running.

Hydro and others combined are major players now.