no, no, maybe, B

You are asking question to which nobody can answer, only guess.

That said, I don't see it happening in 20 years or anywhere near that. I could see a ban on NEW fossil fuel vehicles in 20-30 years, but I don't see how we can force millions of people to buy new vehicles in that time frame.

I also don't see full size truck and suv options for clean vehicles. I know Chevrolet has a hybrid tahoe, but that's the only one I know of. We would need a full set of new clean options for all before we ban the ol' reliables.

Also, here in the US, the current administration seems to have no care about this, and is trying to undo measures that previous administrations have put in place for clean vehicles and power.

SMH

Where do you live?i live in iran and i will set a plan for imigration soon but i will work as a car mechanic and i think that most of mechanics dealers and importers would definetely be disagree with banning gas powered cars what is your take?

I think many people would be enemy of the elctric cars due to if you wanted to protrute some thing to others people would hate that for instance in iran everyone who have the decission to consume cannabis he or she will convicted to death penalty and iran is second reign after afghanistan that has many people who is addicted to this drug

There's simply too much money involved for an outright ban, no way it happens in any of our lifetimes. But we certainly need to take steps to free ourselves from fossil fuel dependency because it's not an infinite resource, and it's harmful for all of us.

#Okay first lemme tell you that if fossiel fuels become banned will us be able to use alterntive biofuels?like ethanol or natural gas???

#And my question is that where they spent that mhch money on banning????what did they do?

*This banning can have lots of impression on at least many 600,000 people only in germany so count on other nations residents

*Of course most car brands like benz bmw etc would stop this because they want to make a furtune and absolutly they have that much power and financial force to have some penetrate the essay

*And i wonder weather people come to the street preventing the banning because they dont want to play ball with goverment in this case.

*may mechanics didnt become jobless but would face with many problems going to threat their trades so it means that this can be blackmail to their profession

*Surely the fossiel fuels should become eliminated but when we can use alternative one why we should set a goal inorder to put internal comution(non elctric) veichles away???if we say goodbye to fossiel fuels it is ok but why accept force????it is certainly cruelty

*and if they want to remove carbondioxide isnt existanse of co2 necessary?

If you ask me im going to say that carbon dioxide is require for even plants and trees life if the co2 disapeared it would have some bad effect on anything living in the world(humans reptiles plants mammals etc)

These are my reason that i support my idea entittled gas cars wont be ban(maybe i have some other reason that i cant remember them right now)

##what do you say in your second line you mean banning wont happened?or it is going to happen??

Battery powered vehicles are not the panacea that people believe. In my opinion, battery powered autos have been over hyped. They do have their place, but fill only a niche. They will not be general purpose, long distance machines. For instance, they likely are not more efficient than internal combustion engines and they do have emissions. Their emissions are at the power plant that generated the electricity to charge its batteries.

To make efficiency comparison, one should calculate how much fuel must be consumed to push an electric vehicle per mile, and compare that to the fuel consumption of hydrocarbon powered combustion engine to do the same job.

The fuel tank for an electric car is at the power station. Fuel must be consumed at the station to generate the electricity that will be used to charge the auto battery, There are plenty of losses along the way to a full battery charge. There is the station efficiency, transformer losses in boosting the station voltage to transmission line voltage, transmission line losses, loss at dropping the voltage to local transmission line voltages, and finally the efficiency of the transform down to household voltages. Next, comes the efficiency of the charger and then the efficiency of the battery itself. It requires more energy to charge a battery than energy stored. Also, there is another battery loss upon discharge. The energy delivered to the load is less than the energy stored in the battery.

I have not completed this calculation because I have not found all the average efficiencies along the trail of consuming fuel to pushing a vehicle its average mile, but my gut feeling is it will not be more efficient than burning fuel in the vehicle's Internal combustion (IC) engine; Plus the range of the IC auto far exceeds the current crop of electrics and it takes much less time to refuel.

Its my opinion that the hybrid is a better option that an all-battery auto, particularly in cold climates. An onboard engine can supply heat for warming the passenger compartment and defrosting windows. Using the battery to do this job would speed the depletion of its stored energy. The air circulation fan consumes considerable energy.

There will be those who say we'll use wind and solar power to recharge. That can be done, but there are considerable problems to overcome. Wind and sun sources are very variable and there is no sun at night, the time period when many commuter vehicles may be charged. A means of mass storage and power generation is needed to fill in the valleys of solar and wind power and to smooth the output of the grid.

Battery powered autos are intriguing, but not a complete solution. Sadly, in the not too distant future, it may be the only solution we have as we deplete hydrocarbon sources. Hopefully, technology will find alternate solutions.

So even though scores of scientists and engineers have determined that electric vehicles are highly efficient, you've decided that the whole process must not be, because of all these factors that no one else has thought of but you, even though you don't actually have any data to back up this 'feeling'? Huh.

Yes, life cycle cost must be considered. By your method, one would also have to consider the energy expended in every step of delivering fuel to the gas station. There are 'losses' in that process as well. The much higher efficiency of power plant boilers vs. internal combustion engines makes a huge difference. And electric motors are in the 50% range on efficiency (converting electricity to motion) whereas gas engines are about 20% efficient.

There are many other considerations as well that do not factor into your math, including air quality gains, the environmental costs of petroleum extraction, refining, pipeline spills, and so forth.

I cannot point to a specific study that does all the math you propose, but I would not be at all surprised if it was out there. In any case there's more to it than you assume. Yours is not a scientific approach, it's biased.

Yes, the Chevy Tahoe I eluded to is an SUV. And at $80k, the Tesla Model X is not affordable for the masses. He's asking if we'll see a ban on gas/diesel powered vehicles in 20 years and I don't see that happening.

I don't think so either.

I did look at Teslas just last weekend (accidentally came across a display storefront in KC). The 'cheaper' Tesla, the Model 3, is at $53k right now and a version with shorter range (200 vs. 350 mi approx.) is supposed to come out for $35k. So the prices are coming down, and will continue to as the technology is further developed.

I think it is going to be market-driven (at least in the US, where most things are that way). There are incentives (tax credits, govt funded research, etc.) to encourage things in a direction, but the market is in the driver's seat, so to speak.

US aside, it's a growing movement with specific dates to phase out gas engines:

"Survey of Global Activity to Phase Out Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles"

Center for Climate Protection (climateprotection.org)

Updated September 2018

Pg 2 has the updated list of countries and date deadlines for ICE phase-out:

https://climateprotection.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Survey-on-Global-Activities-to-Phase-Out-ICE-Vehicles-FINAL.pdf

No ban will be necessary. The benefits of electric vehicles will cause a fairly fast natural shift away from petrol engines.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for electric vehicles is becoming significantly better than petrol. Companies with large fleets of semi trucks are all planning very quick migration to electric because of this. These are not emotional decisions but purely economic as an electric truck will cost them much less to operate than a diesel. Orders for new diesel cabs have tanked while the industry waits to see how the Tesla, Mercedes, MAN and other electric trucks do. The monetary benefits are too great to ignore.

A similar shift is happening with other commercial vehicles from taxi's and pick-up trucks to buses and local small route fleet trucks. When it's a monetary decision people are looking at electric.

Personal cars are a bit different. It is only within the past year or two that electric became truly more cost effective than petrol. But few car buyers look at this. They look only at the up front cost and don't consider the fuel and maintenance costs for the next 4 or 8 years of ownership.

There is also a bit of a learning curve. People don't understand electric and so they are fearful of them. Mostly, people are fearful of running out of charge (range anxiety). Some people are fearful of the cost to replace batteries. However, as more people buy electric cars and more people know someone who has one we'll see a fast shift from fear of the unknown to embracing of the benefits.

Also as more people experience what it's like to drive an electric the more they'll likely want one. As the CEO of Audi said "once someone has driven electric they are lost to the petrol car forever".

Norway, Netherlands and other countries have begun to see other bits of the shift which is loss of petrol stations and fast decline of value for used petrol cars. Petrol stations can't stay in business if people aren't buying from them and as the number of electric cars increase the amount of petrol being purchased is declining. As the number of stations decline so is the difficulty in finding one in some areas. People in Norway are also having to export their used petrol cars elsewhere because people no longer want them.

I'm not going near an electric car until I can "refill" my battery in under 15 minutes and have a range of 500 miles.

Steve J., the last time I looked at the hybrid version of the Tahoe, its fuel economy wasn't very great. Has it improved much (to over 20 MPG)?

I'm not going near an electric car until I can "refill" my battery in under 15 minutes and have a range of 500 miles.

Really? How about 300 miles of range in 3 seconds? One of the benefits of electric is waking up every day with 300 (or whatever) miles of range. You plug in when you get home at night and you're fully charged when you start the next day.

After driving electric for 3 years I had to go back to my old SUV as my primary vehicle for the past 5 months due to having to visit a construction site every day. I'd totally forgotten how much of a pain it is to have to find gas stations and fill-up all the time and very often at inconvenient times. The site should have a paved entry in a month or so and I'll be very glad to get back to my electric.

I travel and 300 miles isn't enough for one day for me. And charging the car takes hours, not seconds. I would have to stop and recharge, interrupting my trip. Unless I am fortunate enough to have Tesla and use a supercharge along the highway. Otherwise:

Charge time for a Tesla Model S
Charger level Time to charge
NEMA 5-15 3 miles of range per hour
NEMA 14-50 10 ½ hours
Wall connector 6 to 9 hours
Supercharger 1 hour

If you travel all day then that's a problem with the current level of technology. For most people, it's not a problem.

For normal day it is not, but that puts a big damper on "road trips" if you can only drive 300 miles at a time and have to stop and wait for the car to charge up. I think most all of us will have a long drive at some point. On the fly solar charging would be nice if feasible.

Fuzzy, agree w/ @tox.

@Steve J, road trips are not a problem. We've done numerous trips from MN to FL and NYC. I chaffed a bit at the thought of our first MN to FL trip because I tend to get miles focused. What I found works well is a mid morning stop for coffee and short 20 min charge, a full 45 min charge lunch stop, a late afternoon coffee and then maybe charge over dinner. I may only get 700 miles in a day rather than 750 but I feel much more alert while driving and more rested on arrival. I'm not sure how much is occasionally spending 20 minutes looking at something other than a windshield and how much is getting more activity than a gas stop but it works.

I've never met anyone who did road trips in a Tesla who wanted to go back to gas.

tox: And that's why I said I'm not interested in current technology. Call me back when I can fully charge in 15 minutes and get more than 300 miles on the charge.

opaone: I hope you enjoy your 12+ hour days.

I don't have to defend the state of the technology, and I probably won't remember to call you anyway.

For the rest of you, Tesla has a nifty app that not only maps all the charging stations but you don't even have to come up with a credit card. You set up an account and if you have the app open when you pull up, it recognizes you and charges the account. I'm old school so I was impressed by that. Young people probably won't be. :-)

I saw a charging station outside a major grocery store in Lincoln NE. Now that's a good idea - 20-30 mins in the grocery is long enough for quite a bit of charging.

As for solar: With today's solar panels, you can't get enough power output to keep a car running just on that. At least, a car as we know it. For many years there has been a solar car race amongst universities (the Sunrayce) whose students build super lightweight totally solar powered cars and race them across the country. That event has resulted in a lot of research in materials and design, computerized control systems, all kinds of stuff. It's not 'there' yet in terms of consumer use. BUT, with the pace of advances in solar panels and thin materials, I expect that coating a car's roof and hood with highly efficient solar cells that look like a paint job is not too far off. It could at least provide a good chunk of the power. Or, solar canopies - parking lots with solar electric roofs you can plug into, that provide shade as a bonus.

We didn't get here overnight, and it's not going to change overnight. I'm just glad to see change progressing along.

Are solar and wind so 'unreliable'? If we have a diffuse supply of renewables across the country, they will complement each other. Sure, we can't shut off all the fossil fuel plants overnight, but we're already learning how to integrate diverse energy sources. It's not THAT hard.

Solar is only unreliable when the system isn't designed properly. A properly designed system can be as reliable (or more so in some areas) than grid power.

Traditional sources (coal, gas-fired, hydro, nuclear) are quite unreliable as well. At MCI Communications we had large diesel generators at all of our switches and IT sites. We burned something like 80,000 gallons of diesel each month just with weekly test & maintenance startups.

My BIL has a machine shop but only a very small diesel generator because he said that by the time a generator starts up any damage that can be done is done (and this happens about once or twice per year). They are evaluating a battery system that would largely avoid the switchover but the cost of the solution is greater than the damage caused by not having it. (they also looked at dual power feeds but the cost would be far greater than a battery system ).

Our current traditional electrical grid is not as reliable as you seem to believe.

As to Australia in particular... The increased costs are due largely to massively increased demand over the past 3 decades. Building & operating new generation facilities, regardless of source, is very costly given how much equipment and fuel must be shipped in from elsewhere. Costs would have risen dramatically regardless of generation choice. Some of the outages have been properly blamed on wind systems but wind is still a newer/evolving technology and fortunately they're learning more about it every day and its reliability is improving. Still a long way to go though. AEMO and every analysis done of the outages has also noted that other alternatives (coal, gas, etc.) would likely prove as high cost/risk and have noted that solar is not only more reliable but becoming more cost effective than any alternative.

HOWEVER :-), any way you look at it energy is expensive to generate, transmit and store, and regardless of source the costs (% GDP, % average annual income) are expected to rise dramatically in the coming years. There are also growing concerns about the near future availability of oil (and so petrol), natural gas, coal, and nuclear materials. On the battery side we've no idea if there is enough lithium (or alternate materials) to make enough batteries for all of our cars, trucks, cycles, houses and iPhones.

At some point we'll likely need to get very serious very quickly about our energy consumption. Do we really need 5,000 lbs or 2,000 lbs of vehicle and all of the energy that it consumes (petrol or electric) just to go pick up something at the grocery or go grab a bite to eat? Should we be living in homes where 70% of the heating & cooling energy is wasted due to poor design?

>>Spoken like a true believer who happily ignored the facts.

I am aware of the issues. Someone is going to have to figure it out, because the fossil fuels won't last forever. And if climate change is as hard on us as we think it might be, earlier cutbacks are the only way to even slow down that train. Just sayin'.

And I have a problem with calling wind and solar (etc.) 'unreliable'. Sure, they have different production parameters. Solar panels work best when the sun is out. A boiler, too, only works when you feed it coal and water, and electricity comes out when the turbine is working. Even a nuclear plant has to shut down for refueling. Each source has to be considered for its production profile (to make up a term). Within those limitations, solar panels are very reliable, so are wind generators, and hydro plants. Calling them unreliable only leads to bias against them.

"Solar panels work BEST when the sun is out." Funny! They ONLY work when the sun is out. That's their problem! Nuclear and fossil fuels can provide electricity 24/7/365 to a grid that needs electricity 24/7/365. Solar and wind can't and because they can't, coal, gas and nuclear electricity generation has to run 24/7/365 regardless to smooth out peaks and valleys in supply and just be there when wind and solar can't. If you're happy paying twice as much for your electricity: once for coal/gas and nuclear to run 24/7/365 and a second time for wind and solar because it makes you feel good, then I don't have an issue with your choice. But I do hate paying extra from my bank account so that you can luxuriate in your token virtue.

I must try your method of re-classifying my contracting services though. When I don't turn up to job sites on time or even miss entire days or weeks, it's not because I'm unreliable. I'll now say I have "different production parameters". I'll tell the building owner that within my limitations, I'm extremely reliable and by cancelling my contracts he's causing bias against me. I wonder how that will fly? Seems to make perfect sense to you, but no one else.

Do you see a difference here? Gas/nuclear/coal provides power 24/7/365. Refueling, maintenance, outages are planned for and covered. Solar and wind ONLY provide power when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. Gas/nuclear/coal HAVE to run in the background irrespective of how much sun is shining or wind is blowing.

As for imaginary fears of fossil fuels running out: maybe they will one day, but there's a long way to go yet. There's probably 1000 years of coal left. Oil may run short on supply, but so far all fears of Peak Oil are overblown as extraction methods continue to improve. Then there are methane clathrates. Conservative estimates have the world reserves at twice all other fossil fuel reserves combined. Extraction has been the issue, but the Japanese have taken steps in that direction. And as for nuclear, the reserves seem secure.

Climate change! Another joke. The IPCC keeps lowering the expected temperature rise by 2100 because their expected temperature rise just isn't happening. They're down to 1.5C now, but it's still going to be "catastrophic". Other than a small spike during the El Nino of 2016, we've seen no significant temperature change for 20 years despite rising CO2 levels. Let me know when all those apocalyptic predictions start eventuating and when we should panic, because it all appears rather tame and unexciting at present. It's been 30 years and sea levels stubbornly refuse to rise, polar bears are luxuriating in high numbers despite their anticipated demise, all those Pacific islanders still have secure plots of dry land on which to reside (darn inconvenient!) and most homeowners unfortunately, are still safe and sound from massive tornadoes and hurricanes. Oh well...

I don't actually have to pay twice for power. I'm about to put solar panels on my house and remain connected to the grid so I can feed extra power in during hot summer days when I'm not home and the system is producing more than I'm using. My utility will buy that power and my bill over the course of the year will average zero. I do have to pay for the panels, but with federal and local tax credits they will pay for themselves in 10 years. The result is that the grid gets A LITTLE decentralized and A LITTLE less dependent on fossil fuel. I think that's a good thing and nothing you've said convinces me otherwise. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

And good for you. Tax and investment incentives drive that type of spending. However, someone is paying for your virtue. Coal, gas and nuclear electricity generation is still running. It just means a smaller customer base from which to generate income.

It costs the utility companies about 4-8c/KWhr to generate electricity and they sell it to the customer for 16c/KWhr (or whatever your local rate may be). Your utility company is required to buy the electricity you generate at 16c/KWhr during off peak periods, when it could generate electricity itself for 4c/KWhr, and then sell electricity back to you during peak periods at that same 16c/KWhr when it costs them twice as much to generate it. (Peak periods are roughly 7-9 am and again at 6-8pm when solar is generating little if anything.) The utility is burning money to be a battery service for your solar panels, but that is its requirement and it has to work with it. The utility will provide ongoing line service, maintenance and hookup to your house at no charge. Very charitable. Someone else is paying for the utility company's operation and profits. It just won't be you. Likewise, someone else is paying for the tax credits. It's just not you. Typically, it's the poor section of society that can't afford the panels or is in rental accommodation where the increased electricity charges are levied, Go figure! It's the cracked up "Save the World" environment we currently live in where solar and wind were meant to take over the entire electrical grid but are making it more expensive to operate and less reliable and penalizing the poor. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

The grid doesn't get decentralized and less reliant on fossil fuels despite what your sales rep spewed forth. You're still going to be connected to the grid. You're still reliant on fossil fuels and nuclear to provide you with 24/7 electricity. You're not decreasing the need for traditional electricity generation. You're simply changing the demand curve. The demand curve used to look like two hills at 7-9am and 6-8pm with wide valleys in between at about 60% of peak. Industry operatives now refer to the demand curve like that of California as the "duck curve" because the peaks remain the same and the deeper valley during the daytime as residential solar production kicks in makes the curve look like the profile of a duck's back. Those generating stations can't just turn off and on 800 ton rotating armatures and water boilers like a light switch. It's just that the costs of that service are lumped onto someone else.

BTW, make sure you budget for a replacement inverter every 10 years. Your solar panels are also going to lose about 1% efficiency every year for the next 20 years or so too. If you have a shingle roof, you'll pay extra to have the panels removed and reinstalled when your roof is replaced. Make sure the contained lead and cadmium is properly disposed of at the end of the panels' life cycles. Even with all the incentives and the cost of money, your "investment" will cost you about the same over time as if you had just paid the utility company for grid electricity, but if it makes you feel virtuous, then go for it. Just don't imagine it's free or as environmentally friendly as you think.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Actually utilities are not necessarily 'required' to pay retail to customers for their excess solar output. I understand that in my state they are only required to pay wholesale. My local utility has elected to pay retail which is a major incentive.

I have heard about the 'duck curve' and this is going to have to be addressed. Utilities and the grids they are connected to have to be able to operate efficiently - and that includes cost-efficiently - and provide reliable power on demand. It is a problem I am sure mankind can address.

Aside from reducing fossil fuel use and carbon emissions, I am sure there are other advantages to a decentralized power system.

Global temperatures have already risen 0.8C since 1880 when detailed records began, but 2/3 of that has been since 1975.

The cost of not doing anything is severe IMO.

PS The salesman did not spew, and didn't need to. I've been paying attention to these issues since 1980.