nerfer

How High Will the Price of Oil Go?

Thanks for the feedback.
Range doesn't concern me so much. Most people commute less than 40 miles a day, and electric vehicles easily go double that distance. Recharge conveniently at home for pennies per mile (but upfront costs are more significant, as you mention). Have a hybrid or rent a car for your long trips & save money overall.
Tata is also experimenting with making an electric version of their small car, or a car powered by compressed air (probably noisy to refill). But the Nano is just too small and too slow for common American tastes, a used small car would be more attractive.
Fuel-cell vehicles (hydrogen) are a complete boondoggle, at this time, IMO.

Some of the established manufacturer's EV plans:
www.bloomberg.com/apps...
In China, Chery is an automaker to watch (may actually partner with Chevy), they have a proposed $15K electric car. Some more about China's auto plans:
evworld.com/news.cfm?n...

Living4Dividends wrote:
"I am not impressed by the US's lineup of EV. All are expensive like the Volt. I don't know about China's EV offering. Still 20,000 seems like a lot of money for a vehicle that only goes a short distance. The Tata Nano is $2500 for the fully loaded Indian version. Let's say the world model, with airbags & western safety features costs $5000. That is an inefficient car with superb gas mileage. "

How High Will the Price of Oil Go?

The $40K Chevy Volt is not the single face of our EV future. Many other companies (many small new ones, some new faces from China and elsewhere) are coming up with new innovative ideas for half the price of a Volt. The tricky part is getting past the safety crash test hurdles (several million dollars that a startup doesn't have), so more than a few are designed with 3 wheels to be classified as motorcycles. In 2011-2012 there will be a real change in options to the consumer, and the big car companies may never be the same, if they survive that long.

How High Will the Price of Oil Go?

I'm not so optimistic about oil substitutes. They'll take years to come online, and any disruption (like a 6-month slump in oil prices) will likely derail investments & cause the process to start over again. Ethanol was going to be the savior, but people became fixated on corn, which is the worst source of ethanol. Our green options are natural gas (a la Picken's plan), cellulosic ethanol, & electric vehicles (which can be charged overnight on the existing power grid for the first few million vehicles, after that we need to do something).
Coal unfortunately will be part of our future because it is there and it's cheap (as long as mountaintop removal and stream dumping is legal), but it's the worst option environmentally.
Geothermal (for electric grid, EVs) is an overlooked opportunity - green power, available 24/7 (for certain parts of the country). California could have all the EVs they want if they expand geothermal. That frees up natural gas for long-haul transportation.

But oil itself has a limited lifespan as a transportation fuel. I think we've already seen the peak in production. OPEC couldn't increase production in the first half of 2008 because they were at max production. With $60/barrel in a recession, when the economy starts coming back the price of oil will increase even faster. $100/barrel will be the low end in 2010, and it only goes up from there, only tempered by its braking effect on the economic recovery.