I don’t get how the economy slows down if we invest in new technologies and create tons of new jobs in the process. The model that worked in the past was investing in science and technology and allowing private companies to capitalize on that process. It made the US an economic powerhouse. Over the years we have ceded that role to other countries and our economy has suffered for it. We can choose to be world leaders on this stuff instead of letting giant corporations bleed us dry but we’re getting close to the point of no return imo.
The high speed rail thing is a pipe dream in the US but don’t let it distract you from all the other things in that bullet-pointed list. Almost every one of those would be an improvement on the status quo.
If we build out the charging infrastructure the EV will absolutely be a suitable replacement. Or just stick with the airplane. It’s not going away anytime soon.
An argument could be made that environmental considerations should trump desire for most discretionary travel.
I think an existence where that was put into practice would really suck (just as being locked down during the pandemic sucked), but I can see the logic behind such a stance.
I can go 1,000 miles in 15 hours without ever going more than 10 mph above the posted speed limit in an EV? Even assuming the charging stations exist, doesn’t it take like 30 minutes to get like a 200 mile charge?
In my current vehicle I can potentially go the full 1,000 miles with only one fuel stop, but since I don’t like to see how low I can run the car, I usually do two fuel stops. They’re about 5 minutes each, so refueling adds 10 minutes to my journey.
In which EV can I go 1,000 miles while spending only 10 minutes stopped for refueling? I’ll even spot you 20 minutes as I might decide to use the restroom or buy a bag of Reese’s Pieces in the convenience store which adds on a few minutes.
Oh, and let’s assume that I’m charging my iPhone and using the heat if it’s cold and the air conditioning if it’s hot. And, my in-laws live in the south so it’s usually hot. I had the A/C on last Christmas.
Yeah, Thanksgiving 2020 I took a full turkey dinner to their house, complete with sides and desserts. Can’t do that on an airplane or certainly on high speed rail. Hubby was on a work trip and met me there.
It was a pleasant drive though. I left around 8:30 AM and got in around 1:30 AM. I like driving, and my new(ish) car is nice for road trips.
It would’ve been considerably less pleasant without climate control and cell phone charging and spending a crap-ton of time waiting around at a charging station. Even assuming that eliminated food stops (another maybe 15 minutes in aggregate) I think it would’ve added a TON of time to the drive, which is unacceptable to me.
It was the only way they were going to have a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving unless I took copious amounts of time off work to buy all the ingredients and equipment needed that they don’t have in unfamiliar stores and make it all in an unfamiliar less-well-equipped kitchen.
First Thanksgiving hubs & I went there together I had the idea that I’d just make a pie. They didn’t have sugar or an electric mixer / egg beater.
It was far easier to just do it the way I did it. Made all the food Tuesday at home, drove down on Wednesday with a cooler & picnic basket full of food, and we feasted on Thursday. Wasn’t crazy at all, at least not to me.
(Also, and this is my last reply. I don’t mean disrespect when I’m arguing that you’re taking AOC too literally. I take things too literally as well, and it results in me being terrible at interviews, for example.
I mostly meant to argue, I think that all the GND was intended to be overambitious political fluff. And that your criticisms could be equally applied to most politicians.)
Exactly. I’m not going quite that far, but far enough that EV is not the viable alternative that Triweasel claims it to be, even granting his qualifier that the needed charging stations would exist at reasonable intervals.
If I’m getting the numbers correctly, this is a 15 hour trip in an ICE car. It was reasonably “comfortable”.
If an EV extended the time to 16 hours, that would be out of the question.
I’m sure that with current technology, there are some trips that are on the margin. The extra time goes from "that’s a long drive just so we can ___ " to “that’s just a little to much time for ___”. I’ll guess the percent of all trips is pretty small.
Regarding technology, I saw this week that the first solid state batteries have reached the point where companies are building enough manufacturing capacity to provide good test samples to car companies.
