I started responding directly to several posts, but I'm not going to bother. I'll just leave a few things here, with the caveat that I, too, love driving, I love motorsport, I love the sound of a good ICE, etc etc. These points here are all fact.
- Many, many studies have been done comparing the environmental footprint of ICEs with electrics. Overall, an 'average' electric car takes about 4-6 years to break even with an 'average' ICE, environmentally speaking, when driven an 'average' yearly distance in a US state with a
dirty electrical grid (read: coal powered). After that they're more environmentally friendly than ICEs. It's not the margin the gung-ho electric advocates would have you believe, but it's there, it's real and it's substantial enough to warrant. This rough figure includes all mining of raw heavy metals for batteries; it includes everything in the production of the vehicle plus the running of said vehicle for the timespan. This is what the evidence says. Anyone who thinks differently is simply denying the facts (read: your "opnion" is, in fact, wrong. Yes, opinions can be wrong)
- Everyone making statements based on electric's future from the standpoint of an enthusiast is completely missing the point: We enthusiasts are a small minority. That's why the manual transmission is dying. That's why sports car are almost all dead. The only reason supercars are enjoying life right now is because of the super-rich who don't know/care about actual performance but want a statement piece - they basically
never properly use those cars, even on track days they get driven at 5/10s. Enthusiasts mean essentially nothing in the greater automotive market, so your "opinion" that we will be the death knell of electrics is farcical at best. We do not matter to the companies' bottom line, period.
- Range anxiety is stupid for the vast majority of people.
Most people drive less than 100 miles a day. The only "issue" with
current electric cars in this vein becomes road trips; for which there are many other options. If you had an electric car, the money you save in powering it (and maintenance!) could probably pay for a rental with cash to spare.
- In the Western World Electric cars are only
more expensive if you consider the vehicle cost in isolation. Factor in running costs and they are cheaper. This can change in areas with limited access to electricity, obviously, or less developed nations, but for the majority of people using this forum that is not a problem; if your electricity was that expensive you wouldn't spend time playing racing sims. Unit for unit, electricity is more expensive than gasoline (in most of the world, anyways),
but electric cars are exponentially more
efficient than ICEs and therefore require vastly lower amounts of potential energy to be input, giving you a massive savings in powering the vehicle. This is fact, as well, confirmed by numerous studies.
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Carbon-neutral fuels for ICEs exist. The company has received funding from Chevron and other oil companies, too, and is currently trying to get to an industrial scale with its carbon recapture technology. I hope that soon turns into industrial-scale carbon recaptured fuel production available at the pump. Even if electric does completely take over, it'll still take decades for a full changeover in rolling stock on our roads, and this tech could eliminate ongoing emissions for ICEs in the meantime; and, bonus, it'll sound
exactly the same as the dinosaur-based sludge we're using now for those that think cars still sound good.
- Climate change is not a problem to be solved (entirely, anyways) by technology. Electric cars are not going to save the planet, but they
could help a bit. The real issue is over-consumption. We just demand too much. Regardless of the vehicle of choice. Same goes for hemp-based paper, or recycling, etc etc. Stop buying so much stuff, that's the best thing you can do. Absolutely do not go out and lease a car for two years and then switch to something else. Even if you go electric, you're still being a tool; environmentally speaking. There's a reason the phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle" is in the order it is.
- Tesla's terrible build quality is not a knock against electric cars, it's a knock against Tesla as a brand. It's their crappy quality control, it has nothing to do with it being an electric car. Oh yea, their paint finish is abysmal, too. My parking neighbor has a model 3 and at first I thought it had been spray-bombed it was so bad.
- On balance, the rare-Earth metals in batteries get compensated by the vastly more efficient nature of electric cars.
But is there enough to go around? What will happen when electric cars, with these materials, become the norm? I haven't seen anything
scientific addressing this point directly.
Now, driving experience from the perspective of an enthusiast. For the sake of argument here, I'm going to do a general "modern" to "modern" comparison. A classic car is a more desirable experience, bar none, from an enthusiast standpoint. 100% agree. But that's not a relevant comparison (and, frankly, serves to kill any performance-based argument really), for obvious reasons. So, comparing a modern electric to a modern ICE:
- Sound: The loss of the ICE rumble. Well, frankly, modern cars sound like crap. They do. Every single modern car produces a manicured exhaust note, and they all sound terrible. There, I said it. This is a moot argument.
- Performance: Electric offers 100% torque, all the time. Even a modest electric is quicker off the line than most ICEs. Loses a bit at higher speeds, but most of us can't get there, anyways, due to 'pansying out,' lack of straight roads and unwillingness to break the law
that much. This doesn't bother me one bit since I like the twisty bits, anyways, and straight roads are boring as hell. In this situation, from a pure numbers-on-paper performance standpoint, electric wins. If you're highway blasting, sure, an ICE might be quicker sometimes, but that's so irrelevant, anyways. Straight lines are for people who can't drive.
- Transmission: A manual is arguably the most fun part of any fun car. Score one for the ICE - except, not really. The manual is a dying breed, so it won't be long before this is a moot point, too. Brings a tear to my eye, but it's true: see my previous point about us enthusiasts being a small minority.
- Weight: Score one for the ICE here. Apples to Apples, the ICE car will be lighter, probably. Who knows where battery tech will be in 15 years, but for now this is the case. I like lightness, as any self-respecting enthusiast should. I am a fan, after all, of the twisty bits.
Feel free to draw your own conclusion from that.
Honestly, for me? If Polestar made an all-electric version of a Subaru BRZ (meaning, rear-drive, the same size/proportion, as light as possible, and styled like a Polestar), that would be my next car. 100%. Probably won't happen, but that's what I want for a modern vehicle. In my dream garage, I'd park it right next to my 2017 Subaru BRZ and 1972 DeTomasso Pantera.
Point being: You can be a car enthusiast and like both options, and understand the advantages and drawbacks to both. It's not black and white.
