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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 81716" data-attributes="member: 126">Re: Batteries May Become ObsoleteThere is no dispute about that, however gross distortions of economic reality when politicians inject their fat thumbs into what should be free market decisions. Electricity is wonderful, and even better if we ever perfect energy storage that approaches a simple steel gas tank for energy density, reliability (ask boeing about&nbsp; energy dense batteries), and cost. Cost is always the elephant in the room that politicians seem to ignore. Trade offs in efficiency for a small IC motor vs a large land based turbine, is a trade off we freely make for the convenience and relative cost. I congratulate the politicians for being forward thinking and trying to be proactive by draging us kicking and screaming into their vision of the future, but I don&#039;t share their particular vision, and prefer allowing the free market to decide such things which generally is more efficient. Electric cars were invented over 100 years ago, and the free market would have preferred them over fossil fuels if it made practical sense, but exactly the opposite happened. Cheap oil, killed the EV 100 years ago... and now it only barely alive with heavy government life support.&nbsp; &nbsp; At some point in the future i expect to see EV come into their own, but not quite yet. Perhaps if fossil fuels were in decline, instead of coming out of our ears so free market forces and scarcity could bias the equation the other way. It will happen just not in my lifetime. &nbsp;JRPS: I huge increase in the gas tax would help increase EV attractiveness, while far from allowing an unfettered free market decision. I am surprised that didn&#039;t happen already as Steve Chu advocated for higher prices to promote &quot;green&quot; technology.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 81716, member: 126"] Re: Batteries May Become Obsolete There is no dispute about that, however gross distortions of economic reality when politicians inject their fat thumbs into what should be free market decisions. Electricity is wonderful, and even better if we ever perfect energy storage that approaches a simple steel gas tank for energy density, reliability (ask boeing about energy dense batteries), and cost. Cost is always the elephant in the room that politicians seem to ignore. Trade offs in efficiency for a small IC motor vs a large land based turbine, is a trade off we freely make for the convenience and relative cost. I congratulate the politicians for being forward thinking and trying to be proactive by draging us kicking and screaming into their vision of the future, but I don't share their particular vision, and prefer allowing the free market to decide such things which generally is more efficient. Electric cars were invented over 100 years ago, and the free market would have preferred them over fossil fuels if it made practical sense, but exactly the opposite happened. Cheap oil, killed the EV 100 years ago... and now it only barely alive with heavy government life support. At some point in the future i expect to see EV come into their own, but not quite yet. Perhaps if fossil fuels were in decline, instead of coming out of our ears so free market forces and scarcity could bias the equation the other way. It will happen just not in my lifetime. JR PS: I huge increase in the gas tax would help increase EV attractiveness, while far from allowing an unfettered free market decision. I am surprised that didn't happen already as Steve Chu advocated for higher prices to promote "green" technology. [/QUOTE]

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