Electric Cars Are The Future.

Very likely, yes.

Cost, battery technology and infrastructure development will limit the growth.

Gas prices are approaching $4.00/gallon again, even though the US is pumping oil at record rates. Record profits for oil don't help drive development.

$7.5/gallon in the UK & we are still buying it. Worse that it looks because the Imperial gallon is about 0.83 of a US gallon.

I drive a 5.4L Ford truck that makes 250 HP and averages around 14 MPG in town and 25 MPG on the highway. I do all my driving in town. Do I need a big V-8? No! I bought it used and had no choice.

My point is you probably drive a much smaller vehicle with a much smaller engine.

Here in America, we do everything to excess.

Do you approve of your new princess?

Smaller engine yes, but not much more efficient. I average mid to low 20s MPG but I like the performance.

Consider yourself blessed! One of my vehicles is a regular cab 4x2 GMC Sierra 1500 long bed with a 4.3L V-6 (last body style). It makes 195 hp and gets 17 mpg no matter how I drive it - let me take that back, if I'm doing over 80 mph, the gas mileage drops. If I'm stuck in stop and go city traffic, it can get down to 14 mpg, but I rarely see it.

The good thing is that the tank is 31 gallons. I can go over 500 miles on a tank. The bad thing is when it's time to fill it. Some of the pumps stop at $80 when using a credit card, so I have to use two different cards.

I'm in the market for a new truck. I'm posting tonight.

My understanding is that no new models introduced after 2019 will be "gas only", but they will continue to produce the current IC models, which will eventually be phased out. A gradual conversion makes more sense than throwing all the eggs in the electric car basket.

"All Volvo car models launched after 2019 will be electric or hybrids, the Chinese-owned company said on Wednesday, making it the first major traditional automaker to set a date for phasing out vehicles powered solely by the internal combustion engine.

The Sweden-based company will continue to produce pure combustion-engine Volvos from models launched before that date, but its move signals the eventual end of nearly a century of Volvos powered solely by gas."

https://nypost.com/2017/07/05/volvo-plans-to-stop-making-gas-only-cars-in-2019/

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/26/oil-giant-total-sees-electric-cars-cutting-oil-demand-soon/

Only in forward-thinking, developed countries.

Electric vehicles should be here to stay, regardless of what Volvo does. But, phasing out IC engines completely would be a mistake. Somebody somewhere should still have IC engines available for emergency/special cases. It's never a good idea to limit your options that way.

This is push manufacturing to direct customers to purchase new technology and as it "improves" will raise more sales hence more profits.

This will be reinforced by the carbon neutral greenies and legislation by governments keen to grab more sales tax etc.

However cheap and reliable batteries are still a stumbling block, the cost of production and recycling is not very carbon neutral.

Hopefully gas powered engines will not be fazed out in a hurry, the oil companies would have an heart attack.

The company said that they would stop making IC only vehicles. Their plan is to make hybrid and EV's only.

10 countries have set a date for no ICE vehicles to be sold. They can't ban the existing cars, due to collector status and the cost to people who own an ICE car.

In 1981, Rush sang about the future of cars with the song Red Barchetta. As a kid in high school, the words to the song were like a 1950's sci-fi book - "a gleaming alloy air car shoots toward me two lanes wide".

Both China, the worlds biggest market, and the EU have set date for the end of IC so that pretty much means we will be the last vestige of IC in the world within 30 years. Our once proud car companies reduced to back water also rans. Well, except for Tesla, should it be able to survive in America. China would be very happy to have them and Spacex move there.