thill444

Most of these laws won't go in until 2040-2050 (assuming they ever go in). Most of us will be dead before they ban gas engines.

mschuyler

Which will also be electric. You can't win this..

Things are moving a lot faster than that. You will see significant change in ten years.

Mishka2018

I actually thought about getting a Tesla, but instead I bought my corvette. I'm all for electric cars as global warming is a real issue.

That being said, right now I just don't think the technology is there yet for electric cars. For example, they take an hour to charge, don't they?

More importantly, the infrastructure just isn't there yet to make long distance travel viable for them.

There's a lot that would have to be overcome for me to consider purchasing an electric car, even an electric corvette. But once those issues are met? Sure, why not? I would think about it. The fuel savings alone would justify the expense.

However ... I love my corvette so much, that I would be tempted to see if having it converted to electric would be possible first over buying a new electric one. I want too keep Lena (...my corvette is named Lena) on the road as long as I possibly can. Even when gas stations eventually start to become a thing of the past.

mschuyler

The thing is, long distance is not the issue. Most trips are relatively short. A friend of mine who has a Corvette also has one of those older Cadillac hybrids. The electric motor has a range of way less than 100 miles. He hasn't put gas in it in over a year so the car told him it was going to force him to use a tank of gas to clear the old stuff out. People will buy electric cars as their commuter car because a round trip is well within range and they can just plug it in at home. Plus, battery technology is improving steadily so even the long distance drives won't be an issue much longer. In ten years everyone will have an electric car in their stable. At that point it's just a matter of time for attrition to take its toll.

vetteLT193

My daily driver is a Chevy Volt and it's the best daily driver I have ever owned. Plenty quick for getting around town. The quiet is fantastic for listening to music, having phone conversations over bluetooth, and just peace in general while commuting. I'm at 45k miles.... 2 oil changes so far and the 3rd isn't due until January of 2019. I could go on and on about it because it is really that good.

It's simply a fantastic daily driver. With that said my Wife and I own 4 vehicles. She agrees that the Volt rocks for commuting as well but as a car guy I wouldn't make it the fair weather days in the Corvette or my M3 convertible blasting down the road to sweet exhaust roar.

I think it will take a special combo to get a Corvette right as a plug in. I'm actually hoping GM makes a plug in Volt style pickup first. FWD electric power, RW powered off the engine. It would be a very capable vehicle.

Aerovette

It would be kind of a shock (no pun intended) if all this time what we all thought was a mid-engine, turned out to be total electric instead.

sunsalem

Take a look at the Range Estimator and Range per Charge on this page:
https://www.tesla.com/models

There are > 16,000 Charging Stations across the country according to the Dept. of Energy.

LbulletM

That would be sad. I'm sure I'll eventually be ready for an electric Corvette, but I'm not ready yet.

Kent1999

I agree and that's what I was trying to say. No doubt this change will be driven from the threat of govt force, because the facts, current tech and infrastructure do NOT support it at this time. Thus, all the federal money (i.e., taxpayer money) being thrown at trying to incent people to buy electrics/hybrids. It's always the same pattern: First comes incentives, then DIS incentives, then outright bans. The same pattern will be used with self-driving cars.

My overall point was that electric car frenzy is NOT driven by rational arguments, but rather by feels and govt regs.

mschuyler

And mine is that the infrastructure really IS there already. It's just like when you have a diesel powered vehicle. You learn where the diesel pumps are. For the number of electric vehicles out there now, there are plenty of charging stations--probably too many because of the bandwagon effect. Grocery stores do not need charging stations. You're ten miles from home. Charge when you get there. Every home is a charging station and most trips are short duration trips. There's no need to worry about long distance trips at all. It's a false worry. Take your other car. Or take your electric. My cousin has the lowest cost Tesla Model S and he just went from Seattle to Montana and back with no hassles whatsoever. If you want to do it, you can do it. But for commuting to MOST jobs, a single charge will get you there and back where you can plug in for the night. It's not a "frenzy," it's a practicality. It's cost-effective, and once people have some vehicle choices and figure out that it IS cost-effective, they'll move in that direction for economic reasons.

William Gibson, noted science fiction author, is famous for saying, "The future is already here; it's just unevenly distributed." That is precisely the case with electric vehicles. It may take an electrician to tweak the connection in your garage, but that is a trivial matter. We do it for hot tubs and generators all the time. The infrastructure for electric vehicles is ALREADY IN PLACE. It's just a matter of getting people to recognize it's there waiting for them.

It doesn't really matter what the government does. We'll be there in ten years regardless.

///ADMAN

I already have an electric Corvette. The rest of it has a gas engine.

LT4CMG

Your state issued pod awaits you outside to deliver you to one of the 20 predetermined and govt approved destinations you're allowed to visit. The hell with your individualism, welcome to the greater good.

roadbike56

The Bolt is hear now, today. In addition, GM has made it clear they will be advancing electric cars partly because of the demands of the Chinese market. GM will be introducing more electric cars to accompany the Bolt over the next ten years. I would not be surprised to see the C7 replacement show technology toward becoming an electric car, maybe some sort of hybrid. GM understands that to bring the price of electric cars down, they need to increase the volume of cars sold.
It's not just about oil consumption, its about air pollution.
Personally, I'm glad GM is moving in this direction. I hope they become the world leader in electric cars and the technology. We need a US company to set the bar instead of chasing it.

sunsalem

The first GM ME will be a hybrid Caddy.

LT4CMG

Hey, as a life long enthusiast of everything loud and fast, I hope it’s just paranoia. Unfortunately, it will likely be deemed that the self driving pod and millions of distracted human drivers can’t coexist on the same roads. Pretty easy to see which will win and be mandated for the greater good. I hope I’m wrong, but we’ll see what the next 15 years will bring.

C7DriverOnt

So far the Bolt isn't exactly selling like hotcakes, just introduced in January and the plant had to shut down due to lack of demand this summer. Meanwhile SUV's and pickups are the leading sellers by far, SUV's now the big seller in China as well, the largest auto market in the world. Gov'ts will try to force EV's on the public, they make some sense for crowded cities, especially in China or LA. Trouble is can the gov't subsidize every vehicle sold if they grow in popularity? So far doesn't seem to be a problem. Drop the subsidies and sales fall off the charts, Georgia did that last year and look out below. Lets see where we are in 10 yrs , today they are a drop in the bucket and every year 78m IC vehicles are sold adding to the 1.2b on the road. China sells 28m a year now, just a few hundred thousand EV's and those are heavily subsidized as well they get licensing advantages in the big cities. You go to the front of the line to get a license, most have to wait 12-18 months to get a license to drive a IC engine car in Beijing. Grow the IC engine fleet large enough, both China and India are coming on and we may be forced into EV's given the growing use of gasoline, today nearly 100 mill. barrels of day of oil is burned. Few people may be able to afford gas if that continues. Not there yet.


July 17, 2017 / 4:56 PM /
GM extends shutdown at Chevy Bolt plant as inventories swell


Georgia electric vehicle sales shrink 80% in wake of tax credit repeal ...
/news/georgia-electric-vehicle-sales-shrink-80-in.../434092/

Jan 17, 2017 - Sales of electric vehicles in Georgia are down about 80% in the last year and a half, the result of lawmakers slashing the state's generous tax ...



If we go back to $100 oil in the future then I would expect some folks would start looking at EV's again, meantime sales have been disappointing. Obama threw all kinds of money at it with poor results. Reminds me of Jimmy Carter back in 1979 claiming the grid would be 20% solar by the year 2000, turned out to be less than 1% despite billions in subsidies.



2016
DETROIT (Reuters) - Back in 2008, with gas prices averaging nearly $4 a gallon, President Barack Obama set a goal of getting one million plug-in electric vehicles on the roads by 2015.

Since then, his administration has backed billions of dollars in EV subsidies for consumers and the industry.

Yet today – with gas prices near $2 a gallon - only about 400,000 electric cars have been sold. Last year, sales fell 6 percent over the previous year, to about 115,000, despite the industry offering about 30 plug-in models, often at deep discounts.

bsterling9

With the technology that already exists with the hyper hybrid cars such as the Porsche 918 and Ferrari LaFerrari, it's just a matter of time before it becomes affordable to the masses and will trickle down to the Corvettes. On a positive note, electric motors produce INSTANT torque, so don't expect a performance let down (see Tesla P100D Ludicrous). They are now working on better ways to capture the kinetic energy produced by brake systems and such to help recharge the batteries. I also expect glass roof panels to be advanced enough to capture solar power to aid in battery recharging. It's just a matter of time boys and girls!

NSC5

This transition to electric is going to require major infrastructure change; putting in more charging stations isn't the issue but adding the additional generating and distribution capacity to the grid is a huge issue. Producing hydrogen for fuel cell cars also requires significant electrical consumption.

Solar and wind are certainly part of the picture but we had better get over our fear of nuclear and adversity to choosing a long-term storage site rather quickly. The growth and investment needed in this area may be the ultimate constraint of how quickly we move to electric cars. Nuclear has a well known very long time from start-of-project to finally going online and piloting "clean" methods of electric generation can result in a painful process as exemplified by Great Southern/Mississippi Power's attempt at a clean coal plant which ultimately became natural gas fired after incredible time/cost overrun: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilv.../#6c5ab44c4634

JoesC5

Not only are our tax dollars going to support the EV's, the latest GM EV, the Bolt, costs $9,000 more to manufacture than they are selling them for.

When you buy an ICE GM product, you are also paying for someone else's GM vehicle that is an EV, plus your tax dollars being wasted by our government.

JoesC5

Not all of those 16,000 are Tesla Superchargers. Many are 'slow charging' public/private stations.

Did you even read the link you posted? An $80,000 75D at 70MPH in 32 degree weather with the heater on has a 214 mile range. My $80,000 Corvette will get over twice that range and instead of getting 22 miles of range per each hour of charging, I can get 450 miles of range in 5 minutes of filling my gas tank to 100% capacity. Same goes with an $80,000 Lexus LS460(that is twice the car that the Tesla is).

"Really in a hurry? Stop at a Tesla Supercharger station and you can top off the tank with 300 miles of range in just an hour, as long as your Model S is configured with Supercharger capability If a Supercharger station is out of reach, most public charging stations can recharge the Model S at the rate of 22 miles of range per hour of charging."

Also, not all Tesla's are the $120,000-$135,000 P100D model. The lessor models do not get that 300+ mile range(under perfect driving conditions). Drive a P75 on the highway at 75-80 MPH in the winter with the heater on, and you won't make it to the next "fast charging" Supercharger station. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...ind-the-answer

You might make it to a "slow charging" charging station(that's not located 200' from the Interstate at the next exit), but count on being there awhile. A lot of those "slow charging" charging stations are located at private businesses(like motels) and are for patron's use only.

Current hybrids and EV's have been greatly subsidized by the higher selling manufacture's ICE vehicle(not including Tesla who has only had two quarters that showed a profit). The manufacturers have not been selling the hybrids and EV's at their true cost to manufacture. What's going to happen when the .gov mandates all cars are EV's and there are no ICE vehicles to carry their load? My three Corvettes are niche vehicles but GM has always said they have to carry their own load. Silverado's are not subsidizing the Corvette.