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Originally Posted by bradleyland
I think it's important to compartmentalize when considering current-day EVs. Hybrids are an obvious interim compromise, but EVs like Tesla's Model S are better platforms the future of the automobile.
When we talk about renewable energy sources, we're not talking about eliminating electricity, we're talking about where the electricity comes from. Batteries are not an energy source, so even if a perfect renewable energy source were to fall in to our laps tomorrow, it wouldn't eliminate the need for batteries.
I think it's unlikely that we'll see the development of any renewable resource that we would burn in an internal combustion engine, like we do with gasoline/diesel. It's far more likely that the renewable resource will generate electricity. The question is whether the entire means of power generation will be suitable for installation in an automobile, or if the electricity will be generated in large facilities and stored in some other medium (like batteries or kinetic storage devices).
The only part of current-day EVs that I would say stands a 100% chance of being discarded in the future is the LiIon battery. It's limitations are too significant to sustain our needs in to the distant future. However, a LiIon battery has nothing to do with renewable energy sources. You "fill" a LiIon battery with electricity, so all the other components of a current-day EV -- the motors, the power management systems, etc -- are progress that is invested in the long term.
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I understand you. I agree. I didn't mean eliminating electricity either (yes, of course, the renewable resource will have to generate electricity), and yes, the question of the power generation object's suitability for vehicular installation is the key question.
I didn't want to mention any specific and currently developed (though perhaps not altogether practical) approaches, but there are several renewable approaches to producing energy that I suspect the impracticalities of which could be overcome, nuclear, hydrogen and vegetable based power being among them.
As go electric cars themselves, I'm fine with them but as you said, the LiIon battery just isn't going to cut it in the long run. But it may be that we need to go through the LiIon stage in order to discover what it is that'll be better. ???