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There's a megatrend suggesting that the Electric Vehicles (like Elon Musk's Tesla) will completely replace the Internal Combustion vehicles within the next decade (or even THIS decade)....
but Mazda said otherwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87c48vd9Bvk
Mazda is pushing its already excellence Skyactive technology to its next frontier. still put much of its stocks in the internal combustion engine R&D while others follow Elon Musk hype.

Your thoughs?

A company that makes its money selling combustion engine cars is pushing a future with combustion engine cars in it? WHODATHUNKIT?!

Gasoline internal combustion, no. Engines powered by hydrogen or natural gas, definitely.

 curran12 wrote:
A company that makes its money selling combustion engine cars is pushing a future with combustion engine cars in it? WHODATHUNKIT?!

They push this because the competing technology is still plagued by a big flaw. especially during the recent hurricane disaster that hit the Missisipi basin this year. where Tesla cars were rendered unusable while generic vehicles can still move on its own power.... as long as the EV still have a short operational range (usually urban areas, especially those with recharging stations available) and the infrastructures to resupply the EV aren't yet adequate. (and ... there's still fuels compatible with vehicle-grade combustion engines, be there petroleum distillates or not)..... and the 'comparative fuel costs' the alternative are't yet economically attractive enough. this 'antique' techlology still have its own future.

We should note, there is no technology guarantee that electric vehicles will improve. That is an assumption, that while we hope it does, doesn't necessarily have to be.

I couldn't do my present job with an electric car because I'd have to recharge it in the middle of my shift, and that's with great non-freezing weather and everything working perfectly. A real winter with snow and -20 C temperatures? I could as well quit instead of going out with something that has a max range of 200 kilometers in good conditions but is now eating that range for heat so I see something and stay alive.

The old combustion engine still has a long life ahead of it just because it's so simple and reliable, and has a long range compared to even high-end EVs like the Tesla. Once the industry manages to squeeze in a 2-3 times more efficient battery pack and gets the price down by half or more then maybe.

It's iffy. Electric cars still have 3 major problems.

1) Poor range. Equivalent electric vehicles just can't go the same distance as a gas car can before needing to refuel/recharge.

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

3) Problem #1 is made even worse by the fact that batteries degrade quite rapidly. It's why my dad decided against an electric car he was looking at. It had a max range of 70 miles, his commute to work is just under 70 miles one way. But within a year, his battery would degrade to where it could no longer make it the round trip without recharging halfway, and there wasn't a charging station at work. So he went with a Prius.


I think Hybrids are the wave of the future, not electric. They use existing infrastructure and have comparable/better ranges than a gas car.

Electric cars are still weighed down by our battery technology being quite awful. Until we can massively improve energy storage, battery longevity, reduce the size, and make electric vehicles in the same price range as gas vehicles, electric vehicles will be little more than a gimmick.

Crude oil is finite, once supplies run low it will only be used for essential or costly services and not largely cracked down and burned for thermal energy as it is now. Further, cites are becoming so polluted that clean cars will become more popular even while fossil fuels are abundant. While electric cars currently get most electricity from conventional coal powered stations, the pollution stemming from transport is nationally more diffuse rather than concentrated into urban areas.

Hydrogen has some safety issues, while electric cars have issues with supply and management of metals in their batteries. But both have a future beyond crude oil.

Sure, we will eventually have to move to electric. Or possibly just keep hybrids once we genetically engineer some plants to make renewable combustibles(which has actually already happened) in a practical fashion.

Eventually, we'll have to realize that Nuclear is the only real clean option for power generation that can also keep up with consumption.

Within a decade? Not even a chance. 50 years? Sure.

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.

I do think that EVs will become the standard in due time, there isn't really any reason to suspect that technology won't get us there. But there will always be a use for the old technologies as well, and there will be some essential areas that will want to have a reliable standby in case the EV is simply not an option.

Just look at Kerosene lanterns. How long have we had the electric light bulb and how long have we had reliable electricity? But there is still a legitimate market and need for the kerosene lantern. I suspect it will be similar for internal combustion vehicles. I can see gasoline engines going away, but diesel engines to stick around due to their fuel versatility.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.

True, but now that infrastructure is there. Good luck just tossing it out. Petroleum is a HUGE part of our economy, we're not just going to completely phase it out in a decade.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.

Well that infrastructure can be used for future hybrid, electric, or hydrogen cars, so thats a good thing.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.

Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.

So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.

 d-usa wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.

Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.

So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.

mileage or a standard tax when renewing registration.

Full electric will be a long time coming, for multiple reasons:

First, support infrastructure isn't there. Not only do you need charging stations, but also the extra capacity and distribution system to replace the gasoline system. Electricity is cheaper than gasoline NOW, but without huge improvements in generation and distribution, demand will drive the price of electricity up and up. Additionally, the gasoline distribution system acts largely as a back-up for the electrical system (portable and stationary gas powered generators). If the gasoline infrastructure dies due to electric, gas generators won't be a practical solution for power grid outages. Who is paying for these infrastructure upgrades? Either the taxpayer or the electricity buyer, who can ill afford more price increases.

Second is legacy gasoline. There are millions of gas powered cars out there, and a good portion off them are 10+ years old and still running, especially in place that don't salt the roads in winter. Even if they stopped making gasoline powered cars today, it would take probably 20+ years before the old gas powered cars were worked out of the system, which means the infrastructure isn't going anywhere, but it's competing for space with the aforementioned electrical infrastructure. This will drive up the price for BOTH of them.

Third is climate related. Chemical batteries, including lithium ion, work best at certain temperatures. Gas power will be preferred anywhere that it gets really cold in the winter time, because you can't afford a sluggish vehicle when driving in snow. There are places in Canada where the malls have block heater connections in the parking lots. Electric cars generally have the batteries distributed across the entire vehicle, so you'd have to keep the whole thing warm to keep the chemistry ticking over. Anywhere that hits -20C on a regular basis is probably a no-go for electrical, at least for the time being.

Fourth is recycling. Your average gasoline car is made of steel, rubber, and plastic, which are pretty easy to recycle and frankly non-volatile. Pull the engine and dashboard and you've pretty much gotten rid of all the e-waste and can send it to the car crusher. Electric cars are full of e-waste and batteries, which are not easy to recycle, but cannot be left to 'rot' in a field like a gasoline powered car. Eventually the batteries will rupture, expand and catch fire or explode. This is a problem we haven't really even run into yet, as most electric cars are still less than 10 years old, but once they have a decent market penetration, it'll start happening. Electric cars MUST be recycled at end of lifespan, or those batteries MUST be replaced and recycled. Electric vehicle recycling infrastructure must be built in parallel with expanding market segment - hopefully lithium becomes valuable enough to warrant this, though this will drive up the price of all Lithium ion batteries as a consequence.

So basically, you need massive electrical grid improvements and recycling IN PLACE before we can even think about converting to 100% electrical vehicles, and it still won't be practical for a decent portion of humanity to give up on internal combustion. And as long as we're still drawing up oil and refining it, there will be a certain amount of gasoline produced that needs to be 'disposed' of, and we're not abandoning the use of oil just yet (plastic, at a bare minimum).

By the same token, a pretty significant amount of federal taxes go to keeping gas prices cheap. That's what I'm getting at; we've got a system built entirely around supporting our existing fuel technologies. It makes for a lot of impossible comparisons with competing tech that isn't similarly supported.

 Frazzled wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.

Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.

So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.

mileage or a standard tax when renewing registration.

Mileage would probably be the best way, and the most fair way, of doing it. But man, could you imagine the sticker shock of having to pay all the fuel taxes you are currently paying each year all at once?

Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.

Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.

 LunarSol wrote:
By the same token, a pretty significant amount of federal taxes go to keeping gas prices cheap. That's what I'm getting at; we've got a system built entirely around supporting our existing fuel technologies. It makes for a lot of impossible comparisons with competing tech that isn't similarly supported.

You're just thinking federal. States don't make those cuts, but they get a ton of money from the taxes they levy. Tennessee along generates 700 million in tax revenues from gas.

 LunarSol wrote:
By the same token, a pretty significant amount of federal taxes go to keeping gas prices cheap.

Maybe in the USA, not in Canada or Europe.

 d-usa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.

It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.

Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.

So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.

mileage or a standard tax when renewing registration.

Mileage would probably be the best way, and the most fair way, of doing it. But man, could you imagine the sticker shock of having to pay all the fuel taxes you are currently paying each year all at once?

Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.

Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.

I'd be on board with that, even now. My truck destroys gas, but I don't put the miles on her. At 14 miles to the gallon city driving, I use almost twice as much gas as a standard car, and drive the same distance. So I'm currently paying twice as much in taxes.

 d-usa wrote:


Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.

Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.

Yeah, I can't see that happening. OTOH, cars have odometers, and you could be forced to report your mileage annually.

More likely, electric car charging stations will have fuel taxes built-in, even in-home ones.

 John Prins wrote:

 d-usa wrote:


Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.

Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.

Yeah, I can't see that happening. OTOH, cars have odometers, and you could be forced to report your mileage annually.

More likely, electric car charging stations will have fuel taxes built-in, even in-home ones.

So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?

 djones520 wrote:

So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?

Smart meters that measure electricity consumption are already standard here in Ontario. Previously someone had to trespass(*) on your property to physically read the meter. Car chargers in your garage will be purpose specific and easily metered by your power company, who will collect taxes on the government's behalf. There might even be a separation of data involved so long as the government gets its dollars.

(*) not actually trespassing, unless you don't want to buy electricity at all.

 djones520 wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

 d-usa wrote:


Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.

Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.

Yeah, I can't see that happening. OTOH, cars have odometers, and you could be forced to report your mileage annually.

More likely, electric car charging stations will have fuel taxes built-in, even in-home ones.

So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?

Your car stores that information and gives it up every time you take it to a mechanic. Cars have their own black boxes. Further, modern cars are effectively networked. That freedom train sailed a long time ago.

For me it is plainly obvious that I and many people in my area will have combustion engine vehicles for some time. The infrastructure in the countryside has always and will always lag behind the big cities. There won't be the charging the convenient charging points in the right areas in a suitable quantity to make electric cars viable outside of returning home to charge again. My main concern is the cost of your electric bill and the life expectancy of the batteries in cars which are can be very expensive to replace.

I believe we will see people using combustion engines right up to whenever a deadline is set where you are not to build and sell new cars with the polluting engines. Certain countries are jumping on the wagon by giving a target date to go all electric, but I will be very surprised if any actually keep to it. People may just keep their old combustion engine car for many years if they can't buy a new one and there is bound to be a big second hand market from this, Electric engines in small cars and commercial vehicles are a good idea, but it is totally unviable to think an electric motor could power the same HGV trucks we have today (at the moment). They just aren't powerful enough and batteries still aren't that efficient. One of the biggest thorns in the all electric utopia is agriculture, my industry. Tractors. An electric motor cannot provide the horsepower needed and would burn out if the battery didn't drain first long before 12 hours were over.

The combustion engine still has a future long after it goes out of the mainstream. If it was banned entirely then heavy logistics and food production would collapse over night. A final concern would be a global power shortage as we will struggle to provide enough electricity to meet our growing demands. Electric may be the future in certain industries and niches, but it is still a long way off, and it won't kill off the combustion engine until a revolutionary technological step is made that bridges the gap in motor power and electric capacity.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Crude oil is finite, once supplies run low it will only be used for essential or costly services and not largely cracked down and burned for thermal energy as it is now. Further, cites are becoming so polluted that clean cars will become more popular even while fossil fuels are abundant. While electric cars currently get most electricity from conventional coal powered stations, the pollution stemming from transport is nationally more diffuse rather than concentrated into urban areas.

Hydrogen has some safety issues, while electric cars have issues with supply and management of metals in their batteries. But both have a future beyond crude oil.

It is worth mentioning that for all intents and purposes, hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy source.

Cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen actually uses more energy than is released when the H2 and the O are recombined in the engine.

Hybrid vehicles are, at current tech, more efficient than hydrogen driven vehicles.

I do not foresee the end of the internal combustion engine anywhere in the next decade.

The Auld Grump - barring a sudden breakthrough in fusion power.... It seems to have been right around the corner for about forty years now....

 djones520 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
By the same token, a pretty significant amount of federal taxes go to keeping gas prices cheap. That's what I'm getting at; we've got a system built entirely around supporting our existing fuel technologies. It makes for a lot of impossible comparisons with competing tech that isn't similarly supported.

You're just thinking federal. States don't make those cuts, but they get a ton of money from the taxes they levy. Tennessee along generates 700 million in tax revenues from gas.

I'm just giving the simple examples because there's no way the complexities of the oil industry are going to be properly explored in a forum post. I'd not dare pretend anything said here is remotely comprehensive.

Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.