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Comment by fooker

4 hours ago

I think we are going to be driving hybrids in large numbers for several decades until there's a new battery technology that triples energy density over the state of the art now.

It can be invented sooner of course, technology prediction never really works.

Apart from Toyotas, hybrids are kind of unpopular precisely because they're a compromise. Not many people who do make the switch to EV go back.

Additional tipping points will come when cities start banning combustion engines on emissions grounds. Then gas stations start closing. After a while you get the reverse condition to EV range anxiety: having to drive further and further out of your way to fill up. Maybe you get a script-flipping service, an EV comes to the few remaining unconverted combustion vehicles with a small bowser of fuel.

"If I asked what people wanted they'd have asked for a longer range horse." Henry Ford, probably.