I had to laugh when I saw a meme on Facebook yesterday that showed an electric car stopped on the side of the road being charged by a huge generator. Someone commented that it didn’t take a crystal ball to see where this whole electric car thing was going and that it would never work.
Well, as a matter of fact, I do have a crystal ball. Okay, I don’t know if it’s really crystal or not, but it’s a glass ball, so stop being so picky. But at any rate, I don’t need that ball to tell me that the meme and the person making those comments are completely wrong. Like it or not, no matter how you love the oil industry and don’t want things to ever change, electric cars are the future. And keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who came of age in the muscle car era and loves Detroit iron. But facts are facts and reality is reality.
As an author I do a lot of research into all kinds of different things and have many different sources, from various websites and library access to a subscription to Newspapers.com, which has proven invaluable, especially in writing my Tinder Street family saga.
I love going to the website and reading old newspaper articles from the late1800s and early 1900s when they said the same thing about the horseless carriage. It was nothing but a rich man’s toy. When it ran out of gas, you’d need a horse or mule to pull it back home because they darned sure were not going to have places to get fuel located all over.
Of course, there were plenty of people who scoffed at the idea of having electricity in your house, too. Not only was it unnecessary, it was also downright dangerous! Newspaper articles and letters to the editor talked about how people would perish in infernos having all that electricity going through their wooden houses. And it wasn’t bad enough that you were going to burn up your own family, you would probably burn up the entire neighborhood! No, forget that nonsense, it wasn’t going to happen.
But you don’t have to go that far back into history to see how wrong people were. Back in the early 1970s I remember browsing through a junk shop someplace in New England and finding a big stack of photography magazines from the mid-1950s. There were several articles about how color film was just a passing fancy and would not last. Nope, black and white photography ruled and it would continue to rule forever. I read the same things about digital photography back in the early 1990s. Are you kidding me? Replacing film with some kind of computerized camera? Dream on!
Then that damn technology thing came along and changed everything. Who knew?
As battery technology evolves, and it is evolving, the demand for electric cars will increase, and we’ll eventually find charging stations just as easy to come by as gasoline pumps. No, it won’t happen today or tomorrow but it’s coming, and it won’t be all that long. I know because my crystal ball told me so.
It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of Buck Fever, the first book in my friend Ben Rehder’s immensely popular Blanco County mystery series. If you’re not a fan of Ben’s books you have no idea what you are missing out on. Wacky characters, great humor, and superb writing. Give them a try. You won’t be disappointed. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with U.S. addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.
Thought For The Day – Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not wling to do.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Just wondering…..how will the charging stations be powered?
Natural gas, coal powered electricity, surely not solar?
Im a big fan of Ben Rehder, although, It’s been a while since I read one of his books. I have read Buck Fever and seem to remember that was the first book in the series about the Blanco County game warden; his name escapes me.
Also, I’m of the opinion that we will always rely on fossil fuels and I am definitely OK with that. I will add, that maybe in the next 100 years, fossil fuel dependency will diminish.
Yes jump on the liberal socialist bandwagon. No more nasty oil! No more guns! Free everything! Welfare for all! Get your head out of your a**!
No question in my mind about it Nick. People have always feared change and denied its possibilities but always come to embrace it over time.
It can’t be that hard for one electric car to transfer enough charge to another electric car in 15 minutes so that it can make it to a charging station.
Obviously a lot of infrastructure needs to be designed and built but it will happen.
The big question is where the power will come from when the sun isn’t shinning and the wind isn’t blowing. Batteries and/or nuclear? A lot of money is being poured into nuclear research for both small fission plants and fusion.
Sooner or later it will happen.
Will electric cars overload the power grid? Most of the answers say we are good until 2035.
Around 1832, Robert Anderson develops the first crude electric vehicle, but it isn’t until the 1870s or later that electric cars become practical. Pictured here is an electric vehicle built by an English inventor in 1884.
And if you look at the California legislation in 2035 you can’t buy a gasoline car it Has to be electric. So it’s not too far off If you look at your Ford mustang park next to an electric Ford mustang yes it is different but all the car companies are embracing it
Would you like to take a ride on my electric scooter I for one at 78 love the heck out of mine
Nick, I’m sure this will not be a event in my life time..Just last week I was in N.Naples helping a friend. I pulled up to the I75 exchange at exit 111 to get in the northbound ramp to 17 in Punta Gorda. After 2 1/2 hours of stop n go and mostly dead stops traffic of all northbound lanes all I could think about was how’s this going to work with electric chargers along the way. I have a small lantren in my RV for a small nightlight and the D cells last for 4 days before I need new ones.