I spent this morning reading a long – but incredibly worthwhile – article by Tim Urban on Wait But Why called, How Tesla Will Change The World. (Are they all this long? It was my first time reading WBW.)
The article, of course, talks a lot about Tesla, but it’s so much more than that. It talks about (1) the history of energy, (2) the history of cars, and then about (3) Elon Musk and Tesla. If you have the time, I highly recommend you give it a read.
But since it is long and many of you probably won’t do that, here’s an extract from the third section on Tesla (EV = electric vehicle/car):
EVs aren’t there yet. Right now, there are legit cons. But as the next few years pass, EVs will get cheaper, battery ranges will get longer and longer, Superchargers will pop up more and more until they’re everywhere, and charging times will just decrease as technology advances. Maybe I’m missing something, and I’m sure a bunch of seething commenters will try to make that very clear to me, but it seems like a given to me: the gas era is over and EVs are the obvious, obvious future.
The car companies, as I mentioned, aren’t happy about all of this—they’re acting like a kid with a cupcake whose parents are forcing them to eat their vegetables.
But how about the oil industry?
Unlike car companies, the oil industry can’t suck it up, get on the EV train, and after an unpleasant hump, continue to thrive. If EVs catch on in a serious way and end up being the ubiquitous type of car, oil companies are ruined. 45% of all the world’s extracted oil is used for transportation, but in the developed world, it’s much higher—in the US, 71% of extracted oil is used for transportation, and most of that is for cars.
As Tim states at the end of his article, this piece is all really about change and progress. Progress is not inevitable. It doesn’t just happen as time marches on. It happens because of strong willed people who believe in something that many others probably don’t.
Because with many changes – regardless of how critical or beneficial they may be to society as a whole – there will almost always be entrenched interests that would rather see things stay exactly the same. But in my view, that shouldn’t get in the way of doing the right thing.
Image: Wait But Why
The car had a profound impact on the landscape of our cities (and that’s probably the understatement of the year). Not only did it force the decentralization of our cities (i.e. sprawl), but it dotted the landscape with gas stations and other things that cars required.
According to the Verge, the first gas station was built in 1905 in Missouri. And it was really thought of as a side business for pharmacies and other business owners. But as of 2012, there were 121,466 gas stations throughout the United States. It obviously became a big business.
But as we make the transition from gasoline cars to electric ones, we’re going to need a new network of “refill” stations. In fact, this network is probably more important than the cars themselves if the goal is widespread adoption.
Below is an animated GIF depicting Tesla’s plans to blanket North America with its Supercharger stations by the end of 2015. By then they will have covered off 98% of the US population and many of the most densely populated parts of Canada.
But there are two important differences when it comes to comparing Supercharger stations vs. traditional gas stations.
First of all, these won’t be the only places where drivers will be able to recharge. People will also charge their Tesla at home. In fact, I would assume that for regular city driving, most people would do just that. It’s far more convenient to just drive home, plug in your car, and have it recharge while you’re sleeping (just like we already do with our smartphones). And if this is the case, then these Supercharger stations will be primarily used for long drives, which means we probably won’t need as many within our cities.
Secondly, these Supercharger stations are free to Tesla drivers (provided you purchase that option with your car). This is really interesting, because it changes the economics of the industry. Selling gas is no longer a profit center.
But what I wonder – especially now that Tesla has open-sourced its technologies – is how these free Supercharger stations will ultimately fit into the broader electric vehicle market. Will other manufacturers create Tesla Supercharger compatible cars? Or will we see a rival set of charging stations emerge?
My sense is that Tesla is doing what it can to ensure it becomes the standard.
Yesterday I wrote a post on why Norway loves Tesla Motors. The lesson was that if you want people to adopt sustainability, just make it cheaper. But here’s something to ponder: Are electric vehicles the right answer to the wrong question? (Jeff Speck in Walkable City)
Now, don’t get me wrong, I think electric vehicles are great. They’re certainly better than gas vehicles from a sustainability standpoint. But is the ideal city of the future one where everyone is driving around in electric vehicles? Or is it one where the majority of people walk, bike and take transit? It’ll likely be a mixture of both scenarios, but I think it’s important for cities to know where they want to go.
Switching from gas to electric solves some problems, but it doesn’t solve all of them. Traffic congestion and lost productivity, for example, don’t go away. So I would say that electric vehicles are part of the right answer—but there’s still lots of other work to be done.
