Ah, the kid brother defence. "But big brother did it, I had the right to!"
Still wrong! Someone else being shitty and prejudiced does not in any way, shape or form excuse your prejudice. I'm sorry you've had to face prejudice, but this way you are paying it forward.
Long haulers usually prefer to gas up at their own private facilities to keep costs down, as I've understood it, using gas stations more as an emergency refilling. I'm not sure if that market is big enough to carry the entire infrastructure itself.
Construction is another big sector for diesel, but in both transport and construction there is a lot of work being put into moving the sector to electrification. Which is well, because given how fast the automotive market has turned change might be fairly quick.
There are other uses as well, but will they be able to carry the market? Driving the need for supertankers and trillions worth of investment in oil infrastructure with fuel cans at the chemistry shops? With rising production costs for big oil? I don't know if I'm more relieved or more anxious about the idea...
Due to the other comment below, i spoke with the guys that run our panels and they answered "well, in theory..."
I'm guessing here, but it might be an issue with the controllers, or that the idea of turning them off is simply inconceivable (why would I turn mine off and let others make money), or something else. But it doesn't seem like standard practice.
Unfortunately it is a problem that needs solving. Electricity needs to be used as it is produced and if its not, it will be a problem. Where i live, the de facto solution today is to heat the oceans. That's not a viable long term solution and why we urgently need to find a way to store energy!
Don't get me wrong, setting up homes to be more energy efficient also needs to be done and may be a bigger issue, but the V2G has been in the horizon for years but has been held back by lack of standardisation and support. That steps are taken in this regard are also great!
Well, wind, sun and fossil free heating spells the terms of divorce with the oil industry. No wonder they fight so hard to block it.
What happens when a nation like Norway goes 92% EV? There will not be any demand for the oil infrastructure, so within the time these last fossil fueled cars goes to the scrap yard, so will the market for fuel stations etc.
Don't get me wrong, the market for rest stops and charging will be the same, but the costs of servicing the pumps and the risks of varying fuel prices will not cover itself. So it will not be carried along.
What about heavy transport? It will take longer, but in time it will go the same way. And prices will increase. With falling demand, perhaps not the price of the fuel, but the costs of keeping the service running. That will be a big upheaval in the automotive service industry.
Geopolitically? Unless you can produce your own oil, it's a big win on independence. It is also a big win in regards to availability. Instead of knocking out 1 plant, an aggressor would have to knock out 10000 small, private production facilities on roof tops. Also a big win.
And if you are able to produce your own oil, it will instead become a liability when those still dependant on oil needs to secure their supply...
Yeah, I got that. And the point of my post was that expecting and planning for a 35% share is neither unreasonable nor impossible. The "impossible" part is on Toyota, not California.
The UK and Germany are both at about 25% EV adoption, as per news here the last days. That's a combined market about half the size of the USA. That seems to work out rather well in terms of supply.
Unless of course, we exclude all non-american car makers in the world. And that's the issue, isn't it?
The pattern is well established. As societies grow wealthier and more secular, and woman gain greater agency, birthrates come down.
Well, urbanisation and our inability to plan cities for kids might, just might, have something to do with it. In the town I work 1/6 of families that live in urban neighbourhoods have kids, while it's 4/10-5/10 in areas of bungalows with proper gardens.
Add an unstable political/medical/economical environment and housing policy becomes relevant. In good times it might be ok to have kids while living in a city flat and plan for moving to greener pastures as it becomes necessary, but not if you can't count on having a job when it's time to buy a new house. And with the housing market being what it is today for first time buyers...
As I get it, it's about shifting the perspective from everything is for cars and pedestrians are an after thought to something like everything is for pedestrians except this particular piece of road where cars may drive. From "car first", to "pedestrian first".
On one hand: this will reduce the Sunshine reaching earth which will lead to lower temperatures despite the added insulation from the CO2 in the air.
On the other hand: this will be the first of many blocking out the sun beneath them. Since the Collector station needs to be so large, many satellites will be pointed to the same stations, clustering in space and create dark spots on land. Guess where the rich won't be living...
It would have to be more than that. If it's supposed to be backed by EU there would have to be an agency responsible for it's development and security. The moniker "EU certified" would require some sort of code evaluation and certification agency. As such it would become rather powerful.
I think it's a good idea, the OS would give the market a focus and allow for a collected development effort without excluding anyone active today from participating. Kinda like what I think Android was, without the risk of lock-in as it would be government funded.
The big question is if this would be within the current EU mandate, though.
My hope, and my belief, is that the switch to greener options has started and might not be easily stopped. EUs fit for 55 is a big deal and on the transportation side we see electrics making inroads in the market in a rather big way. Gas prices has plummeted and since production hasn't gone up, it's just demand side left.
On the construction side if things green heating options has diversified, come down in price and with local low temperature heat storage solutions might be even cheaper and less power hungry.
The only fly in the ointment is that we need to describe it as "increasing resilience", "cutting cost" and "decreasing dependency on over seas deliveries". As long as nobody mention "the inveronment" as the reason to do something.