When will electric cars become popular

Question

What year will see electric vehicles make 50pc of new car sales?

Any educated guesses?

At £1.30 a litre i hope soon!

Answer 1

Not until we reduce the weight of the batteries ,and increase the charge they hold.

Answer 2

As soon as they stop using batteries and use Ultra capacitors instead! But the feds do not want people to use electric vehicles because they would not receive their cut of the road taxes when you charge it at home instead of a some filling station! And they are also afraid that the combined generating capacity of the nation may not be able to supply sufficient power for each of people that wish to use an electric vehicle!

Answer 3

I hear they are working on a super cell battery. I wish they would make electric cars popular again. Immediately. Why couldn't we use golf cart type cars just for around town on roads with less than a 35 mile an hour speed limit. Just think how many gas powered cars that could take off the road.

I don't have a fix for highways, but this could be a second family car for trips to the store or visiting a friend. I could permanently use one of these for shopping,and everything I do, except for vacations. So then I could rent a car or take a bus trip. And how about being able to rent one of these for when you are on vacation? Much cheaper I would think. Very few people live right on a highway, without other ways around it.

I thought these would be a perfect training car also for student drivers. It would save lives if they had to drive one of these cars for 2 years to get experience before getting behind the wheel of a gasoline powered car. What's the hurry, just leave a little sooner than you would have.

Why can't we use street cars again for mass transit, and trains. We are a spoiled country. I would take a golf cart any day to get out of paying for the costs of owning a car. Who cares if they all look alike, or what they cost. The cheaper the better. Make them out of old rubber tires and paint them.

Instead of parking meters in town, put in plug in meters to charge your batteries. How about that. 25 cents for 10 minutes. Before air conditioning we had fans and they worked pretty good, so why don't we use fans in our cars, and screened windows?  There are people out here with millions of ideas. The problem is big business won't let things get cheaper or better because they are too greedy for money and power.

Answer 4

Good question. I think sooner than later. As soon as science can develop a battery that will allow a car to travel 500 miles or 804 kilometers, then you will see manufacturers and consumers demand more of these vehicles.

Answer 5

plug-in hybrids make sense. You only get maybe 10-20 miles range from the batteries, but that is plenty for most trips.  And, when you need the range, you have an engine. I dont know if all-electric vehicles will ever be anything but a niche product.

One thing that could change that would be to let drivers recharge for free.

Electric car lanes on freeways with electrified third rails, for example, would encourage electric cars.

Answer 6

Generally the estimates (including estimates by General Motors, which is developing the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid) is that the 'tipping point' where plug-in hybrids and EVs will make up about half of cars on the road is in 10-25 years.  Somewhere around the year 2020.

This is based on the time it will take manufacturers to develop the technology, ramp up production of these vehicles, and for the public to replace their existing vehicles.  This topic was recently discussed on the EVcast podcasts #49 and 50, if you're interested.

Answer 7

hopefully soon, that way V8's will come cheaper to buy and i can get one.  

Answer 8

Probably not until they have the same range, speed and capacity of gas and diesel vehicle, also not until their price drops substantially.  

Answer 9

GM aims for electric cars to flood showrooms by 2010---and they're far closer to that goal than they're letting on. Word is the other major car makers are scrambling to get their electric car and mid-size car lines out around the same time.....so it's really just around the corner.

The initial price average will start around $30k for a car---but that price will drop by end of first quarter sales---because of the hot sales these gems will make, not to mention the additional factories and booming jobs also to gain from this epic car sales event.