Why electric cars will never be a big thing: [View all]

[DetlefK]

Cars are among the biggest drain of energy in humanity's society. If we replace combustion-cars with electric cars, we will simply shift the energy-need from chemical energy to electric energy.

The problem:
With nowaday's electricity-grid, it's impossible to supply a fleet of electric cars. We would need:
* an infrastructure where you can exchange an empty battery for a full battery (similar to a gas-station)
* a completely refurbished and revised electricity-grid that has the capacity and flexibility to get the electric power to where it's supposed to go
* more nuclear reactors

You simply cannot supply the energy-demand of a whole fleet of electric cars by wind and solar alone. A large-scale switch away from nuclear power is only possible if we reduce our consumption of electric energy. But with electric cars, we would INCREASE the consumption of electric energy.




The choice is simple:
More nuclear reactors
or
more public transportation and less cars.

And here we have the problem that the efficiency of public transportation depends on how the city is built: If the city is compact (Europe, Asia, East-Coast of the US...) then public transportation is more efficient than a car. If the city is wide or the landscape rural (West-Coast, Mid-West of the US...), then cars are more efficient than public transportation.