Is gasoline about to become a thing of the past?

Question

with the electric cars coming into view more now rather then what has been seen in the past.

Answer 1

Nope, gas cars are going to be around for a long long time.  It will take 10 years of normal attrition just to replace 50% of the cars.  Currently the 300 mile range 5 minute recharge battery just doesn't exsist yet, so gas cars will be required for the long distance applications.  The electric car will probably only reach at most 75% saturation since they only work well in metropolitan areas.

Then you have the people that love the older cars.  You know, the ones that will spend $50,000 to have a numbers matching 1966 Pontiac GTO restored to like new.  People that think electric cars will never work will hold on to their gas burner as long as possible.

In the future some of the cars can be powered with bio-fuels like ethanol.  This is problematic in that enough fuel can't be made without impacting food production.  This has already happend last year.  Many farmers instead of planting wheat planted more profitable corn.  Over the winter this caused the price of flour to double due a shortage of wheat.

I've been saying this for quite a while.  Everybody is running around acting like it has to be a binary situation, ALL cars have to be electric or ALL cars have to run on petroleum.  Just as no one car design will fit everybody's needs no one power source will either.  There is room on the road for all drive types gas, diesel, electric, hydrogen, ethanol, etc.

Answer 2

No, gasoline will not be gone for many years to come.

If you look at the electric cars that are, or soon will be, available they don't come anywhere close to what the public currently desires from a car.

First you will need to spend a LOT more money for them. The batteries are expensive and need to be replaced regularly.

You will not have the range you are accustom to. My current car will travel 400 miles on a tank full gas while electric cars are lucky to go over 100 miles at highway speeds with a single charge (even 60 miles is lucky for most).

No air conditioner in electric cars, an AC will consume 5 horse power and doom your range even further.

Even heating the cabin and defrosting the windows is extremely difficult, again it consumes a lot of power and will cut the range.

My advise is to find the smallest and most efficient gasoline car available and lower the mileage you drive and the way you drive it.

Answer 3

I sure hope so.