Hacker News Reader

Comment by russellbeattie | Hacker News Reader

As we move to electric over the next few decades, I wonder what we're going to do with all the ICE vehicles that are on the road now? There's going to be a tipping point where finding a gasoline station will be hard. There are a lot of gas stations, so this is going to be pretty huge by itself. Some states may go as far as banning ICE vehicles all together.

I guess we already churn through a huge amount of cars yearly as it is... I don't see many 1979 Plymouths on the road. They must have been all chopped up at some point, so this is probably a non issue. That said, I can't imagine the transition will be without pain for lots of people...

View on HN

Cars in the US last on average 17 years, though there is a long tail that stretches out 25 and 30 years (mostly for "light trucks").

If we assume the goal is <1% ICE vehicles on the road by 2050, then we need all new cars to be electric by 2033 at the latest, and 2020 to be sure.

Not in the salt belt!

I think we should have a system where cars spend their first 5 years in the north or south, and then spend the rest of their life in the other.

5 years of salt won’t kill a car, but 10+ will.

Yeah. I'm a car enthusiast, have long dreamed of the day retirement approaches and I can have a cool hobby car.

But lately I'm thinking maybe it'll be one of those fast, 2 motor electrics. Probably a lot more reliable, and faster too.

> Probably a lot more reliable, and faster too.

Yeah, but cars that don't buck, snort and belch fire are boring.

Reminds me of the Beetle with aftermarket afterburner http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

Where the real estate is valuable, gas stations are already going dodo.

Production will slow and ICE will go where they still work well: vehicles that don’t move much, so the savings of E don’t make up their capitalized price.

And cold weather environments. Or where the grid is a recommendation rather than a dependency.

I have an old 1967 car that I like to drive a couple times a week so I wonder about this as well. I think the bans will start in the cities (they already have) but it will take a while before ICE vehicles are gone from the areas far from large cities.

I’m 48 and don’t expect the premise of Rush’s Red Barchetta to become a reality in my lifetime.

It turns out that cars in general have serious downsides (at least in large quantities). I predict that the first bans of ICE cars will actually be bans of all cars in certain parts of cities.

Banning cars has already happened: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life...

Off topic but why does hn use the term ICE vehicle rather than gas vehicle? It comes across as forced like when a non tech person is trying to impress me with buzz words and I’m just like no one talks like that in the industry.

Coming from a country that refers to ‘gas’ as ‘petrol’, ‘gas vehicle’ sounds far more awkward than ‘ICE vehicle’ - makes me think of a car running on LPG

> rather than gas vehicle

Probably the same reason you use "vehicle" rather than "car".

It's more than just "gas" - also diesel and LNG. It's generally easier to just use the blanket category ICE.

Because the thing people generally put in a car is a liquid, called petrol, not a gas.

'Gas' is an americanism.

Europeans would say 'petrol or diesel' car, which is annoying, so ICE it is.

Because my ICE recreational vehicle doesn’t run on gas.

Because the term applies to vehicles that don't necessarily use gas. Diesel, LNG, CNG are also ICE.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com