All Electric by 2035 and the collector car hobby.

[MaR]

I wonder if it could end up being that the cars get connected to the grid when not in use?   Its a lot of battery capacity that is available.   There could be incentive programs to help get the capacity where it was needed when it was needed.   I'm not saying 'free money' either.   The power companies have to buy the power from somewhere so they may buy it from a customer instead of another power company.  The tech to actively manage that is already around so its just getting the scale to a point its workable.

"V2G" (vehicle to grid) is something that has been discussed, desired, teased, and will most likely be available soon. Some cars have the hardware installed already, just no software and others will need upgrades to be able to do it. It's first use will be as a whole house UPS for power outages but later when batteries become a bit more durable, a large fleet of cars could be used as a grid buffer when not in use.

[Anderson]

I have a far better idea. It's called the free market system - the most efficient allocator of scarce & valuable resources that has ever been and can never be improved upon until the end of time.

That which is desired should never need to be "pushed." If it does, it is undesirable by definition.

So, much to something of my long-standing surprise I'm going to disagree here.  The concept of a "free market" generally ignores both non-immediate costs (for several different reasons) and issues such as switching costs which enable rent-seeking.  They're called "externalities" (and a lot of argumentation over, say, fuel taxes comes down to fighting over properly pricing those externalities).

An easy example here would be Apple: They've built a highly useful ecosystem of products (yay), but if Apple starts doing something you don't like, the way things are tied together makes switching over to another company (presumably Android) tricky.

Another example of an issue would be that as long as they can pass the issue through to their consumers, power companies don't necessarily have an incentive to resolve issues or prevent relatively rare events (I'm not talking "Black Swan" events out in the 1-in-a-million end of things, but rather things which might reasonably happen with some frequency...just with a relatively long timespan in this context [5-25 years comes to mind]).  In the case of Texas, this /particular/ issue is not necessarily foreseeable...but the broader issue of dealing with power outages does become problematic if there is a policy-based desire to move to electric motive power for personal vehicles.

As to the power generation side of things, I'd argue that any assertion that this is guided primarily by market forces is an exercise in delusion.  The degree to which NIMBY groups can prevent the installation of additional capacity is a very real problem; in this case, I'm referring to one part of the government needing to "drop a brick" on another part of the government.  Some of the issue here is fundamentally that there /is/ demand (either at present or foreseen on a relevant timescale...it does take a few years to build a new power plant, for example) but the permitting process can be sufficiently blocked-up that it fundamentally doesn't do what it "needs" to from at least one perspective.

Anyhow...the point I'm getting at with all of this is that when long-term policy planning comes into the mix (particularly when there's a real risk of "path dependence" for large segments of the market), a pure free market approach is a non-starter here.  It is all too possible for all actors in a situation to act ideally in line with their interests (either immediate or long-term) and the result to still be exceedingly sub-optimal.

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

Anyhow...the point I'm getting at with all of this is that when long-term policy planning comes into the mix (particularly when there's a real risk of "path dependence" for large segments of the market), a pure free market approach is a non-starter here.  It is all too possible for all actors in a situation to act ideally in line with their interests (either immediate or long-term) and the result to still be exceedingly sub-optimal.

While entirely possible its never the permanent result when the free market is left to its own devices.  Far worse results come from attempts to eliminate every bump in the road that comes along - real or imagined, indeed contrived for cynical & self-serving purposes under the cloak of altruism.

The most inefficient policy of all is that which comes from those who bear little or no consequence of their hubris and/or ineptitude.

[mario]

"The most inefficient policy of all is that which comes from those who bear little or no consequence of their hubris and/or ineptitude.:

That brings to mind nursing home residents in New York and that state's governor dealings with them.
Ciao,
Mario Caimotto

[cadillacmike68]

With all the oil we're not using in cars / trucks, we can burn it in more electric plants.   

[5390john]

The conversion to all electric is starting to gain momentum.
GM has started advertising the new Hummer EV. I checked it out on the GMC website and it is pretty amazing.
I would encourage anyone who has posted on this topic to check it out. This vehicle is just the beginning of an onslaught of new products and ideas that will be coming to market over the next few years.
I think GM has done an outstanding job with the Hummer.
Comments from the chorus?
John Adams

[Big Apple Caddy]

The GMC Hummer is one of many new EVs on the horizon.  It will be interesting to see how things play out.  Also, it looks like the "GREEN act" may bring federal EV tax credits back to GM and Tesla for a few hundred thousand more sales.

[Scot Minesinger]

Even if all cars are electric by 2035, the average age of a car on the road today is 12 years (might be 15 years old now), so worst case gasoline should be available into the the late 2040's, or another 25 years or so - who knows then what will be reality?

[LiscLee]

I think it is quite possible. General Motors, one of the first in the world to produce electric cars back in 1996, has invested more than $35 billion in the area's development. By 2025, more than 30 models of electric vehicles are expected to be available for sale worldwide. Ford intends to sell only electric cars in Europe by 2030. The plan is to make all passenger cars zero-emission vehicles by 2026. That is, either all-electric or hybrid. I read about it in automotive news on zumroad.com. In ten years, I hope I'll buy myself a brand-new electric car.

[PHIL WHYTE CLC 14192]

Not being political, but this is totally political. I will stop there.

[badpoints]

The Corvette C8 Z06 engine will probably be the last internal combustion engine ever developed. Nice that is also the most powerful naturally asperated internal combustion engine in history. They also have a program where you can assist assembling your engine. Might be tough to install in an old Caddy.

[Lexi]

As Phil pointed out this is (largely) a political discussion. In another thread Laurie was basically making similar comments along with others (which were censored). Another example of politics being difficult to separate from our Cadillacs especially as all ICE cars will be impacted by so-called "green politics". Clay/Lexi

[PHIL WHYTE CLC 14192]

Without being political I personally believe hydrogen would be a much better way to go as internal combustion engines can run on it. We have seen big financial incentives here in the UK to buy EVs but already these are being stepped back.

[jwwseville60]

Hydrogen? Think Hindenburg airship. And its cells were not under high pressure as they are in a vehicle.
Our modern gas tanks are not pressurized very much. But a hydrogen vehicle tank is...in spades. Can you say: BOOM?
To make hydrogen it takes huge amounts of electricity....huge. Its not practical on a large scale.

EV is the future, the future for Cadillac, but gas will be around for a long while. No worries.
New fusion and quantum torsion field zero point technologies from the US military will power the grid by 2040. Mostly.
The military uses them in secret, but its a badly kept secret. (Deep Underground Military Bases, DUMBS. Ravenrock, Mount Weather.)
Fossil fuels must go away. Its a National Security and defense issue. Much better batteries are on the way.

Im 60.
By the time Im 80, Id like one or two of my vintage Caddies converted to EV.
The rest will be a static display. There are, and will be, fewer shops and mechanics willing to work on them. I bought my 61 CDV from a woman in NC. She said she couldn't get anyone to work on it within a 75-mile circle.

Caddy concept car.