Robert Roth
2 min readMar 25, 2022

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I am a retired Intel EE. I put 20,000 miles on my first M3 standard and upgraded after 12 months to dual motor with more range. In two years and 40,000 miles range has never been an issue. But range anxiety is when I travel to a place with limited charging like Mt Rainer. Bottom line I love the car.
I think folks don’t appreciate what is possible nor what is coming. Currently demand is more than supply, which encourages engineering investment. This eco system of consumer demand fueled by engineering better, cheaper products was/is the case for semiconductors, computers, internet services, cell phones. A trillion dollar market attracts continuous product improvement and manufacturing capacity and efficiency.
Your investment and mine into Tesla fuels this eco system. Other vendors will catch up, especially since Tesla has granted access to their patents and makes no secret of their production methods.
So what? First the battery developed is focused on high volume production with more abundant materials. LFP is an early success. More is coming. By 2027 or so the production capacity of the industry will likely exceed 10 million units per year.
What about EV design? Already it is possible to design more efficient EV. Limit the acceleration and you can used less cost in the battery, dropped in half. So $20,000 EV is easy today. It will be common as the engineering eco system continues to improves cost and performance.
10% of vehicles account for 30% of gas demand. Those vehicles are Uber, police, delivery vans and such. Gas car life is about 4 years in frequent stop and start driving. EV tolerate this much better so have 7 year life. The fuel cost, maintenance and life cycle cost of a $40000 EV is cheaper now than a $25000 gas vehicle.
Once the production issues are resolved, and EV are offered in a full range of performance, price and physical configuration, EV likely will likely Capture 90% of the market.

What happens then? Basically in the USA we will see a reduction of costs for light vehicles of about $315 billion per year or Trillions per decade forever. Also, as gas demand is reduced, the folks still using gas cars will see a reduction in gas prices, at least until demand is high enough to justify the industry.

EV are inherently safer, more fun to drive and cheaper. The total market of vehicles and their fuel will attract an engineering eco system that will be fun to see develop and early purchasers of EV can be proud they contributed to this sea change.

Note removing demand for gas also makes us safer from Russian dictators or any dictator fueling his war machine from the sale of oil.

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Robert Roth
Robert Roth

Written by Robert Roth

Retired Intel Electrical Engineer, 70's US Navy Officer Nuclear Power Program, Graduate studies in Business UC Berkeley, BSEE U of Fla.

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