The thing to keep in mind here is that gasoline is an extremely compact form of energy, and when you burn some of it, the rest gets lighter.
Electric storage in the form of batteries doesn't hold NEARLY enough power to push a car as far and fast as a gasoline based system of the same weight, and as you use up some of the stored electricity, the battery doesn't get any lighter.
Meanwhile, being rechargeable, electric systems do complement gasoline systems well. So long as you minimize the electric system so that it gives you whatever torque and accelleration advantage that you want over a short distance, it helps the efficiency of the vehicle. Once you start storing enough electricity to drive the car over a great distance, the system becomes less efficient.
The thing to keep in mind is that job #1 is efficiency. Electricity is not magic. It can't replace gasoline at the task we've come to expect, perhaps unrealistically, into perpetuity. Likely, at some point in the perhaps not distant future, humanity will have to deal with an environment that will no longer allow each of us to casually choose to move over 90 feet per second for hundreds of miles over paved roads any time we want.
If we lower that expectation by decreasing the speed, distance and frequency of travel, then maybe electricity or hydrogen or some other energy source will suffice, but so long as we want to move that many people that fast over that much distance, there is no Plan B. Gasoline is our only ticket to that particular show.
Physics. It's the law.
Electric storage in the form of batteries doesn't hold NEARLY enough power to push a car as far and fast as a gasoline based system of the same weight, and as you use up some of the stored electricity, the battery doesn't get any lighter.
Meanwhile, being rechargeable, electric systems do complement gasoline systems well. So long as you minimize the electric system so that it gives you whatever torque and accelleration advantage that you want over a short distance, it helps the efficiency of the vehicle. Once you start storing enough electricity to drive the car over a great distance, the system becomes less efficient.
The thing to keep in mind is that job #1 is efficiency. Electricity is not magic. It can't replace gasoline at the task we've come to expect, perhaps unrealistically, into perpetuity. Likely, at some point in the perhaps not distant future, humanity will have to deal with an environment that will no longer allow each of us to casually choose to move over 90 feet per second for hundreds of miles over paved roads any time we want.
If we lower that expectation by decreasing the speed, distance and frequency of travel, then maybe electricity or hydrogen or some other energy source will suffice, but so long as we want to move that many people that fast over that much distance, there is no Plan B. Gasoline is our only ticket to that particular show.
Physics. It's the law.