"Around 2024" is what they said yesterday.
"Volvo’s transition will be gradual. It plans to still produce existing models with conventional engines after 2019, but it will no longer introduce new models with the older technology. Depending on demand, Volvo will completely phase out cars powered solely by gasoline or diesel by around 2024."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/business/energy-environme...
As they always say. Please don't give volvo any credit or publicity for issuing the same old "three of four years from now we will have some more bolted-on hybrid models and some electric-clown-car[1] that nobody wants."
BMW and Audi and Merc (and now Volvo) can just recycle these press releases every few years - nothing changes but the three-years-off date.
[1] BMW i3, Merc B class ...
> Depending on demand, Volvo will completely phase out cars powered solely by gasoline or diesel by around 2024.
They aren't killing gas engines, they are just moving to Hybrid drive trains.
The way I see it -- plugin hybrids with a minimal 50 mile electric range will start to become the norm, then with fewer people buying gas, many gas stations go out of business. Electric charging pops up at work and at the big box stores. Possibly metered, or subsidised by purchases. Then plugin hybrids become electric only once the gas stations disappear.
The Model 3 coming off the lines in the next few days is the same price as a Honda Civic.
So... 2x in range and 1.0 in price sound good? That's probably 3-4 years out at the current rate of improvement in battery technology.
The Model 3 has an estimated 215 mile range where as a 2017 Civic is estimated a 521 miles. The annual improvement in capacity for Lithium batteries is 8%. So in 4 years you can expect battery packs of equivalent size to go for 293 miles.
So 1.95x the price for .4x the range today and if all things except battery price remain the same, then 1.95x the price for .56x the range.
The biggest problems for electric car is fast charger availability and the fact that DC Fast charging degrades the batteries over time. Deploying DC Fast chargers to homes isn't feasible so charging a 200+ mile battery from 10% to full would take hours using a Level 2 charger.
The way they do it:
* Charge overnight, start every day full * Supercharge on long trips * If you have a Leaf, the definition of "long trip" is a bit short
Done. No DC fast charger needed at home.
I think what you don't understand is that it isn't feasible for everyone to install a L2 Charger in their home. 240v connectors in garages might be an option for new construction but aren't common in older construction. The installation cost isn't a fixed number and there are several factors that can raise that cost into the thousands of dollars. That's even assuming you own a home, if you rent then it's probably not an option. If you live in an apartment or condo then it's even less a possibility.
If owning an electric car requires access to an L2 Charger to be feasible then there will have to be serious infrastructure changes before most ICE car owners will consider them practical. Charging stations will have to be readily available everywhere, not just in your home garage assuming that's even an option. Sure your office parking garage might have two or four charging stations today that were easily installed but what will it take to install 20, 40, or 100? Can our grid even support that scale?
Most people can't afford new cars let alone 200+ mile EVs and ~100 mile EV has a number of caveats that will necessitate lifestyle and behavior changes for a lot of people. My Leaf typically reports 93-96 miles range at 100% charge and I commute ~25 miles one way. That should leave me with around 40 miles of overhead and yet that's rarely the case. Driving in excess of 55 miles an hour for prolonged periods of time quickly depletes the battery as does rapid acceleration. If I'm not paying attention to my driving then I can easily arrive at work with a battery at 40% capacity.
EVs are currently practical for a small subset of the population however there will need to be significant changes in the electrical grid, charging infrastructure, EV range, and EV cost before mass adoption is even possible.
I say all of this not to claim that charger access is not an issue -- it is -- but to point out that solutions exist.
Also, I hope this is a good illustration of why you should not tell other people on HN that they don't understand something.
How so? The OP said that by 2040 there wouldn't be ICE vehicles on sale and the reply we're on remarked about the need for dramatic improvements in battery. I stated that I felt charger availability and battery degradation would be limiting factors. We're discussing charger availability and two of the key factors to availability are infrastructure and cost.
> So, apparently, you don't understand how people who currently own electric cars & can charge at home do charging.
> Also, I hope this is a good illustration of why you should not tell other people on HN that they don't understand something.
I think you should heed your own advice because as I stated before, I own an electric car, charge from home, and don't have a L2 Charger.
> I've had several friends who've had to go back and forth a few times with their electrician to get a L2 charger installed at their house.
Are you implying I didn't try hard enough to get a L2 Charger? I can get one installed, I haven't and you have literally no idea why nor have you asked.
> I live in an apartment, and after 3 years of lobbying, my complex installed a charger.
That's great, what happens when 10 tenants at your apartment all buy EVs? Do you have to petition for another 3 years to get additional chargers installed? Or does your complex implement fines to encourage sharing? The parking deck at my office has 4 spots for 2 chargers and charges you $20 if your car occupies a spot for more than 4 hours because the demand exceeds the capacity and they're not about to shell out for additional capacity.
Things like requiring new construction to offer chargers is great but it will only take us so far. How many L2 or DC Fast Chargers can be supported by the transmission lines being installed with that new construction? As soon as 50% of the parking spaces in that new construction demand access to chargers there will be a reckoning because the cost to install the necessary equipment will be significant. Eventually we're going to run into a situation similar to what happened in Australia with solar deployments, the demand for charging stations will put such a demand on the grid that a moratorium will be imposed.
I did however find this article (https://electrek.co/2017/05/07/tesla-limits-supercharging-sp...). This seems to imply that the packs are damaged by repeated Supercharger use and will automatically throttle themselves to lessen the damage being done.
Tesla seems to be very coy and dances around the subject because they don't want to attach any stigma to fast charging while EVs are still in their infancy as it might negatively impact their adoption rates.
In the article you linked, the customer appears to have noticed a slight decrease in the peak charging rate. It doesn't sound significant to me. There are certainly other Teslas out there which are supercharged 100% of the time, Tesloop is one example.
That's one of the three reasons Tesla gives for throttling the charge rate.
> In the article you linked, the customer appears to have noticed a slight decrease in the peak charging rate.
From 120kW down to 90kW peak charging rate is only slight? I realize it's peak and not average but a 25% reduction is only considered slight?
Also you said that Tesla disagrees with me about the affect of DC fast charging on battery life. The statements from Tesla seem to agree with me and they have implemented technologies to mitigate those effects in the form of peak rate throttling over time.
You seem to misinterpret Tesla saying it's fine to DC Fast Charge to mean that it has no detrimental affects when they really mean that they have protocols in place to ensure the pack will not degrade to the point that a warranty replacement is necessary.
Edit: I will say 5.6s is pretty darn quick. I would consider anything quicker than ~7s to be more a fun thing to have than a practical, neccessary acceleration.
"Right now a Tesla has 250 miles of range"
If you buy that model, sure. But the base Model 3 only has a range of 215 miles, and that's assuming you're not using the heater or A/C.
"The Model 3 coming off the lines in the next few days is the same price as a Honda Civic."
Where the hell are you getting your numbers? The Civic starts at a little over $18k, whereas the Model 3 starts at $35k. Even the Civic Type-R is only $32k, but that's a different beast than a regular Civic.
Battery swap sounds reasonable.
Lithium ion car batteries will get to 1/2 or 1/3 the price within a decade. By that point, electric cars will always be cheaper (edit: than current ICE TCO)
When we're at 1/10th the cost (which may happen!) it seems quite likely that fossil fuels will all be more expensive than storage backed renewable energy. As the demand for fossil fuels shrinks to a tiny fraction of its previous size, prices will also go down, as only the cheapest to extract oil will still be profitable.
In this hypothetical future, it may be possible for gas cars to be as cheap as an electric car, but it remains to be seen. In any case, the cost of energy will be lower than it is now.