Who will buy an electric car when they are available?

[kircher]

When they're cheap enough I would not hesitate for a moment to buy one as a commuter car/grocery getter. Nothing like sitting in traffic or at the lights in total silence using only a watt or two of power (to run the brake lights and stereo, etc), plus they should to a billion km without any servicing beyond replacing the batteries and the tyres. The motor in your hard drive can spin at 7200rpm for years and years non stop. No internal combustion engine will do that. Add up how much it costs to service and fuel a car, air filters, oil, belts, etc and the cost of swapping out batteries will be chicken feed - and they'll only get cheaper as they're mass produced, probably in China. Electric motors and circuitry simply do not break down over a realistic time frame.

And I don't buy into the idea that the batteries are not sustainable, as long as all of the relevant EPA measures are put in place. Battery technology is advancing continuously, and they are all fully recyclable. The lithium/calcium/lead/whatever doesn't go anywhere, it's just converted to another compound over time, and can be reprocessed. And fuel cells? I'll wait and see. Hydrogen is a really difficult thing to store. I don't see Hydrogen fuel cells being a reality for another 20 years, and even then, who says batteries or some other storage medium won't be better anyway?

And what's with the requirement for doing 100s of km? 95% of people drive 20km or less a day. Nothing says you can't have an internal combustion engine for long distance AND an electric car for the daily commute.

We'll see. My prediction is most of you will be driving electric cars by 2030.