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Now for a future where conventional oil fields are depleting at 5~7% a year and governments across the Western world can't afford to maintain, let alone perform quality upgrades on key infrastructure like roads and electricity grids, these vehicles above make good sense. There is a practical limit to the size of anything. Launch vehicles, ships that want to ride the plane, and all manner of things, the same applies to the standalone electrification of vehicles. People will talk about the next generation of battery technology as though an amazing breakthrough is imminent but there is no evidence of that. They too have a practical limit, an energy density limit basically. As an example, there is news out this week about incremental improvements on Fusion power, that breakthrough has been 40 or 50 years in coming and we're still waiting.
I own an e-bike, very cool, a range of 50~60km on flat ground if you don't push it. Push it and wind resistance becomes the limiting factor. When riding it I rarely use the pedals, I could, I'm a cyclist, but it just doesn't feel natural so I typically go for the throttle lever and enjoy the view of the countryside, something impossible on a Hayabusa.. Once the battery depleted on me a few miles from home and what a bitch it was pedaling that beast back. Forget riding it up hills, it weighs a ton compared (Compared) to a typical bicycle. You get off and push it up hills. You could get used to that, probably no different to a bike and trailer rig. So I think the e-bike has a place in our future, it's at or around the practical limit of the technology.
When I say that I obviously don't mean you can't go bigger. But when you go bigger the cost-benefit equation rapidly becomes one sided. Cheap EV's? Well they were just beginning with those weren't they but the industry is collapsing in the face of the transition. Many manufacturers have been selling way below cost, a shell game of sorts. Wealthy people have been buying EV but not average people, they are a city toy, the equation being Cost = Range + weight essentially. And let's never forget the motivation behind the EV. A source of practical mobility when oil becomes too expensive due to depletion. But since the cars are made with oil and coal at every stage, and the majority recharged with coal fired plants or rebuildable technologies made from oil and coal, they will always be dependent on the same oil we run in our cars now. So even the Eco-rewards are blown out of the water. No wonder the industry is collapsing.
"According to a 2019 Geological Survey of Finland report, the world average decline rate on post-peak production is 5 to 7%, meaning that oil production could plummet to half its current volume in the next 10 to 14 years"
You don't want to know the latest figures, believe me.
fortune.com
