forbidding the sale of new gas powered cars, it would impose a huge burden on a lot of people.
Every time I read happy posts saying everyone needs to buy an electric car now, I find myself listing the drawbacks. Most of them are very expensive. The cheapest Tesla is currently $70,000, and even though they're touting that a new model is going to come in at $39k (and that's probably the base price. To include a steering wheel and four tires will probably add another 20%) which is a great deal more than I have ever paid for a car.
Plus, the range limit. Until they figure out how to recharge an electric car as quickly as a gas car can be refilled, that's a no go for anyone who takes long drives. As I may have mentioned, I drive from Santa Fe to Kansas City a couple of times a year, also to Tucson, to Denver, maybe a couple of other drives that are well beyond the range of the best so far of the electric cars. Even the fastest recharge is 30 minutes. Most recharges are several hours, up to 8 or more hours. I'm thinking that would make my trip to Kansas take three or four days each way. Really?
Don't get me wrong. I'm quite eager for electric cars that realistically replace gas cars. I even got solar panels on my roof installed back in June. I don't drive gas-guzzlers, never have. My current car is a Fit. I've driven Honda Civics, VW bugs, a couple of Subarus and one Infiniti G20. All pretty fuel efficient. In fact, every time I see something that says when the price of gas pulls back a bit Americans buy more SUVs I'm driven crazy. The vast majority of SUV owners have no need for a vehicle like that.
Perhaps to address your comment more directly, it will be 30 years or so before gas cars are no longer available on the secondary market, even if only electric cars are sold starting next year. And since electric cars are currently such a tiny fraction of the market, it will probably be a decade or more before even 50% of new cars are electric.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there will be a huge leap in the technology within five years or so, in which case my next car might possibly be an electric. If and only if I can take my long drives in as short a time as I currently do, meaning the re-charging has to get down to gas-refilling time.
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