So who thinks they will be driving electric in 10 years?

China is also forging ahead with LFTR plants invented by the man who invented the light and heavy water nuclear power plants here in the US. It was funded as a portable nuclear option for the military in Oak Ridge facility. Can't melt down, far simpler than light and heavy reactors and best of all runs on "spent" fuel rods and can refine and reuse until gone. We have a 300yr supply just in what's being stored. He asks "ok if this is so good why isn't it being used?" Because it doesn't produce fissionable material for bombs and "depleted uranium " munitions used in every war since Bosnia in tank and down to ,50cal rounds. You know how much of the fuel rod is used before its called "depleted"? 5-7%. So it's actually 95-93% un depleted.
 
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Water can be used as fuel, just because some limey didn't figure it out doesn't make it unlikely.
periodical tables be damned, the fact is that it can be and was done but the powers that be killed it both literally and figuratively !!
 
Solar will definitely help with the charging concerns...at least in places where the sun is abundant I see a lot of solar farms everywhere. Even school and university parking lots are now covered with solar panels around here. As for recycling batteries...necessity is the mother of invention so just as better batteries are now possible, better recycling will also become available which will help in reducing the amount of elements harvested from the earth.

As to OP's questions I think in 10-15 yrs a large majority of cars, at least in the US will be autonomous. I see a handful on my commute already. As much as I've always loved internal combustion engines and have been amazed at the internal workings and how they first were mass produced (compared to an electric motor- which is very boring) unfortunately its days are numbered.
 
Correction; The water powered car built by Stanley Meyer was from Ohio not Oregon............
The pattern that I have seen is that whenever some one figures out how to efficiently do some thing that would benefit
people on the whole either gets bought out murdered, or mysteriously dies.............
 
I agree that the battery recycling infrastructure in the US is very weak and needs improvement. However, it is not much different than much of our wasteful use of resources. Singling out batteries as a crisis can make them seem a larger problem relative to all the others. Everything from plastics to flushed drug residuals have a severe impact on our one and only earth.

Regarding water in its native state as a fuel, that is just not going to happen. Hydrogen can be a fuel and is part of water (H2O). Combusting (oxidizing) hydrogen results in water and heat is produced by the reaction. However, getting the oxygen to let go of the two hydrogen atoms in the first place in order to use the hydrogen as fuel takes a lot of energy. So, it is at best a zero-sum-game and typically a loss in net usable energy. Full disclosure, I'm one of those "limey's" that have not figured it out. Sorry Mr. Norseman, no disrespect but your sources are way off base on this one.

Regarding fast charging at home. Yeah, no cheap solutions there. You can slow charge a big bank if batteries or supercapacitors and then dump the energy to the car's battery quickly but those are very expensive solutions and in the case of a big bank of batteries involves more energy loss. Also, fast charging isn't all that great on the long term health of li-on batteries if you do it all the time. Regarding charging safety, generally, the charging voltage/current is not turned on by the charger until a few seconds after the car-end connector is plugged in. There is a safety interlock.
If the interlock fails... well, don't stick your tongue on the live terminals. :blowup:
 
While I understand the appeal of EV's I don't think putting all our eggs in the electricity only basket is a great idea. Too much vulnerability relying on a single source of energy and the people who supply it.
 
May be not in 10yrs but in 20yrs we won't have a choice. Sort of like the manual transmissions, rare to find it as an option and majority don't want them anymore. In fact, our hands might be forced to buy autonomous cars when the insurance is going to sky rocket for those who want to self-drive cars (will be seen as a safety risk).
 
stioc - I bet the autonomous car thing will be a slow evolution. Probably on major highways first, voluntary at first to get people used to it and to trust it. In its current state, it is not quite there. In 20-30 years when I might not see that well or react that well autonomous cars will be a godsend. (Watch out Uber/Lyft/bus drivers.) For now, though all my semi-autonomous features are turned off (except for adaptive cruise control on long highway trips and bumper to bumper, which is double great...). I really like to drive and I'm glad I won't need to give that up for a good long time.
 
Actually Uber already has a fleet of self-driving cars (Volvo) and they recently announced removing the drivers from them completely. Hyundai just announced $35B investment in self-driving cars. Audi is bring their models. UPS is also using the technology in their long haul semis. So it's quietly spreading and faster than anyone anticipated.
 
You are right of course. Which is why my "Uber" comment. My thinking was about the timeline for non-fleet vehicles. Several types of problems need to be solved technical, psychological, financial and legal. Of those, maybe the technical problems are not the most difficult.
 
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