The used market will explode in price. It'll be a long time before infrastructure gets where it needs to go.
If I'm an automaker, I'm going to root for all of my competitors to drop internal combustion immediately and have it all to myself.
If I'm an automaker, I'm going to root for all of my competitors to drop internal combustion immediately and have it all to myself.
Generation capacity is also not a problem. The US used to double electricity generation every decade for like three or four decades in a row in the middle of the 20th century. A single doubling would be more than enough to power all electric cars, and there is no way we are going to switch all of them over to electric immediately. It would take 10 years from today if literally not a single new gasoline vehicle was sold in the US and EVs magically boosted production today to compensate. Oh even incredibly optimistically, you’re talking about two decades to transition which is much more time than needed to produce enough electricity. This is not at all the showstopper that folks on the internet claim it is with even a cursory look at historical data.
In fact, electric companies need the additional demand to help justify and pay for building out new clean electricity production. The extra electric demand is essential for preventing a cost spiral as we transition to clean electricity. But again, that is sort of the opposite of what every commentator on the Internet says.
This is probably not viable for the majority of people. The median commute in the USA is 41 miles round trip. Depending on city/highway miles and driving style, you're looking at 10-14kWh that you need to replace. On a 120v outlet you're looking at 1kW-1.5kW depending on EVSE and your house's wiring, so the window is going to be something like 7-14 hours of plug-in time just to offset your commute. Run some errands, go out for dinner with friends for a few hours, and the battery situation quickly gets dire for the average person (keep in mind that 50% of people have even longer commutes than that!)
(edit: 120v charging is also fairly inefficient, so your 1kw charger may only deliver 800w. I didn't incorporate this in my #s)
A lot of people with shorter distance commutes are also going to be in urban areas, where condos/apartments are more common and you can't just plug into a random 120v outlet safely/legally (some municipalities have legalized running extension cords across the sidewalk but I don't think this is scalable- imagine an apartment building with 100 extension cords running from the street into people's windows).
I think we're a long way from EVs being usable for everyone (although I think EVs are also viable for a lot more situations than people expect- it's just dependent on factors like proximity to L2/L3 charging, whether or not you can charge at work, etc)
Plus destination chargers and charging at work.
This works much better than you might think if you’ve never tried it yourself.
Electric lawn mowers, weed whackers, etc have been around for decades. School buses, utility vehicles, farm equipment (some things that are diesel, too) will all need power. If your combine and harvester require diesel and unit economics drives the price of diesel through the roof, your food will cost somewhat more. As will the cost of delivery. What's the state of electrification of heavy machinery?
Meanwhile the rest of the company is free to do the switch.
A large reason why car manufactures update model lines is to comply with updating emissions, efficiency, and safety regulations. This is the environmental condition that forces major model refreshes.