Uhm, flying is OK in terms of emissions per passenger mile. Not as great as train, but better than driving solo in a gasoline car.

The problem is transcontinental flights. While they're OK in terms of efficiency per mile, the number of miles is staggering.

The problem is, those trips can't be made by train.

So in terms of flying, I think the main focus should be not to fly long distance if it can be avoided. Sure, it's much better to take the train if possible, but if you fly between countries within europe a dozen times a year, that's not a catastrophe.

But as with all radically new technology, there needs to be a strong industry, government and consumer push. The program that produced the Methane turbofan concept (SUGAR Freeze) has lost any political appeal.

You can incompletely combust a 10-carbon molecule and wind up with other hydrocarbons but if you burn up CH4, you're definitely just getting one CO2.

Transcontinental flights (one side of the continent to the other, see [1]) can usually be taken by train. You probably mean intercontinental flights.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_airspeed_reco...

But even if we could replace most <500 mile flights along the most popular routes (starting by connecting cities up and down the coasts), it would be a huge win as far as fuel economy is concerned.

The claim was that the trip can't be made, not that it can be made but is undesirable as compared with alternatives.

They can't now, but they could be. All that is required is a level of capital investment that can't ever be recovered while in competition with air and sea-surface travel...

The transatlantic tunnel has been a sci-fi fantasy since 1895. It could cost as little as $500 billion today.

It was my understanding that driving is better for shorter trips, because the overhead of taking off and landing is significant. I don't have a source. IIRC I read this in "Doing Good Better."

However the thing about flying is of course that it burns fuel at a much, much faster rate, so if it means the difference between you driving to workplace A vs. flying to workplace B regularly, then you'll be burning one hell of a lot more fuel by flying.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Airli...

Whenever I've spot-checked, the break-even is at 2 people, which tends to make flying more attractive for time/fatigue reasons (only barely, at some points in history) even for 2, and sometimes worth the cost premium for 3. For a family of 4 or more, even with the increased fuel cost (but generally not other operating costs) of something like a minivan, driving saves too much money to pass up.

Hopefully, aviation can be electrified too one day (or it’s emissions reduced with hybrid technology), but unlike ground transport, the technology is not quite here yet.

Companies including Airbus, Siemens, and Rolls Royce are actively working on this technology with a view to have working prototypes in the early 2020s.

Besides that, there is some "braking" energy to be recaptured during descent or when slowing the aircraft. This technology already exists today: The Pipistrel Electro can regen it's battery during descent. This is similar in principle to the ram air turbine (RAT) in conventional aircraft.

I wonder, does the efficiency gain from efans and a generator apply to a single engine setup as well as it does to multi engine setups?

It’s now just a case of getting costs down and infrastructure built out. But that’s the easy part.

Really? It seems to me that decent EV ranges are around 150mi right now, with the best ones going to 300mi... meaning they generally might get you halfway from (say) SF to LA, and you can bet that none of them will get you all the way. And that's not even that long of a distance, depending on what your standards are. Now charging times run into multiple hours, right? How is that even remotely close to gasoline?

The new generation of 350kW / 800V chargers will bring that down into the 15-20 minute range.

I realize I'm not most people (I love to drive), but this seems like it's bordering on extraordinary-claim territory. I don't actually expect evidence, since this would be the kind that's particularly difficult to gather (you could ask people, but what people say doesn't necessarily translate to what they do).

Regardless, it seems unlikely to me that anyone would want to be forced to take a break at the 4 hour mark rather than waiting for their destination at the 5 hours mark (e.g. SJ-LA).

I realize, of course, that it's just a matter of (not that great a) degree between 20 minutes every 300 miles for charging versus 10 minutes every 400 miles for fueling. However, because we're not even there yet for a comparably-priced/affordable electric car, it may be premature to think that way.

All those "shoulds" being forced on a consumer are likely to be disincentive to purchase, no matter how "bad" or irrational that might seem.

Considering that the vast majority of trips are within the 200-300 mile range of a modern electric vehicle, the fact that it's already "full" and ready to go every morning can be seen as a major advantage.

Not really, since this is a requirement of electric vehicles, too.

> the fact that it's already "full" and ready to go every morning can be seen as a major advantage.

That's not a fact but a speculation. It requires infrastructure at every vehicle owner's home (including adjacent, dedicated parking for every such vehicle!) that does not yet exist, for this to be true. (Substitute/add "workplace" for "home" may be slightly more likely but not for any specific vehicle).

A combustion vehicle owner could have similar infrastructure installed for liquid fuel, or hire a service to top vehicles off at night. It's too expensive, so "nobody" does it.

Is there even data that shows what proportion of commuters actually park in their garage, carport, or somewhere similarly electricity-adjacent?]

It's easy and inexpensive to install EV chargers at any home with a garage or parking space where electrical wiring can be installed. (In fact you don't even need to install a dedicated charger: you can charge an EV from any electrical outlet, if you don't mind slower charging speeds)

The vast majority of "typical suburban commuters" fit into that category, and they are the majority of car owners in North America and Europe.

OK, it's more of a challenge if you're an apartment dweller or live in a dense urban environment with only on-street parking.

But these are being solved, too: cities are installing kerbside chargers (including the ones built into lamp-posts that take advantage of existing wiring), and building regulations require new housing developments to include EV charging. Worst case, you can always make a trip to a nearby fast charger, but of course it's most convenient if you can charge at the location where you normally park anyway.

Dense cities like London and Amsterdam have exactly these issues, and it hasn't stopped an ever-increasing number of people from buying EVs.

Maybe today. Those are the early adopters. You're still speculating about a future that doesn't exist yet.

> It's easy and inexpensive to install EV chargers at any home with a garage or parking space where electrical wiring can be installed.

Are you a brochure for an EV/charger? :) The "where electrical wiring can be installed" implies installing electrical wiring, which is neither easy nor inexpensive (not in the US, as it will, for most people, involve an electrician and always, AFAIK, require permitting/inspection).

> if you don't mind slower charging speeds

It's not a question of minding but of whether it gets the job done of obviating the need for the separate fillup. If a Leaf needs 17 kWh for 50 miles, it would need 13 hours drawing 12A (max continuous for a 15A circuit) at 110V, which is doable but not exactly a long commute. 70 miles? Nope.

> The vast majority of "typical suburban commuters" fit into that category, and they are the majority of car owners in North America and Europe.

Which category, exactly, though? The one where they live in a neighborhood that merely has garages and carports? Or the one where they actually park every single car in a garage or carport space? (I live in a suburb, and the streets and driveways are pretty full at night.) Also, a majority of a majority can easily be a minority.

I still think you're speculating, and maybe wishfully thinking, without firm numbers.

> Worst case, you can always make a trip to a nearby fast charger

And again you return to the situation where an EV is no different than an ICE vehicle going to a fueling station.

> hasn't stopped an ever-increasing number of people from buying EVs

Without looking at (and showing us here) the actual numbers, from at least the whole of North American and Europe, "ever-increasing" is meaningless, especially when used in support of your original thesis that ground trasport will be largely electrified in the coming years (vanishingly unlikely) and decades (far more likely since you never specified how many).

Global car production, excluding China, is on the order of 70 million. I don't think non-hybrid EVs are even 1% of that, and the production growth has been closer to linear than geometric.

Even if 50% of new cars this year were EVs, I can't imagine that even in 10 years half the cars out there would be EVs. Assuming the current trend, though, for the Western world, it could be another 20 years before that 50% production mark, which means over 30 years before half the cars are electric. There's my speculation.

Other countries (China, Netherlands, France, UK) will follow as governments set mandates for electrification.

The US is likely be some years behind Europe and China on uptake for various reasons - there's not quite the same environmental imperative (air pollution) driving government policy, there's less tax on fossil fuels, and geography/demographics are not quite as favourable due to longer commutes and longer distances between cities.

But I do think we'll see significant electrification in many markets during the 2020s, with double-digit market share globally for BEVs by 2030 and >50% share in some markets (China, parts of Europe).

(btw: You do not need a garage or carport for EV charging. Chargers can be, and very often are in my experience, installed outdoors.)

The latter fails to support the former. A country whose entire population is less than the size of a large city can't be extrapolated, especially since so many other conditions (e.g. economic ones) don't hold.

> as governments set mandates for electrification.

This reads as future tense, so a speculation (upon which you're basing your speculation).

> But I do think we'll see significant electrification in many markets during the 2020s, with double-digit market share globally for BEVs by 2030

"Significant" electrification is still a far cry from your speculation of "largely electrified" ground transportation. 10% is enough for "double-digit", and that still corresponds to getting to 50% around the 50 year mark (assuming "market share" means cars on the road, not just new production).

> and >50% share in some markets (China, parts of Europe).

You really need to exclude China, or at least consider it completely separately, considering how the market is skewed in favor of centralized decision making versus consumer choices and freedoms. It may be interesting for any discussion of emissions, environment, availability of technology, EV competition on the global market, or anything like that, but not for consumer adoption elsewhere.

> (btw: You do not need a garage or carport for EV charging. Chargers can be, and very often are in my experience, installed outdoors.)

Again, "very often" fails to provide any actual numbers. Did you cleverly omit the qualifier "residential" from the above, just to make it true? Were they installed by (i.e. at the individual behest of) the residents themselves, without non-scalable subsidies/support? A government pilot program to spur the 1% early adopters by making it convenient to charge at home can have a politically bad smell if scaled to 10x.

As I said, in my experience, the vast majority of cars in my neighborhood are actually parked where installing a dedicated circuit (let alone a fast charger) is currently impractical, if not impossible. You can continue to speculate all you want about regulations changing or cities installing chargers in the middle of sidewalks, but, today, it's still fantasy.

Bottom line, today, BEVs are 1%, and ICE isn't going away, in large part, any time soon. Consumers who wish to make decisions based on emissions impact would do well not to just to buy into the marketing and wishful thinking of EV proponents and discount the impact of choosing driving (when there is a choice). Fortunately, the impact difference is also typically closely reflected in the price difference, at least for low-margin, high-competition markets (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17578591).

If your destination is only 1 hour further away, then you're only going to need about a 10 minute charge, not the full 45 minutes. And you can stop pretty much anywhere en route where there are chargers available, it doesn't have to be at the 4 hour mark. Plenty of flexibility there.

"we're not even there yet for a comparably-priced/affordable electric car"

I agree, but they're getting close already when you consider lifetime costs including fuel and maintenance. And the more driving you do, the more financial sense an EV makes. That's why we're seeing taxi operators embracing EVs enthusiastically.

This is speculative and doesn't affect the emotional purchase decision today.

> Plenty of flexibility there.

Perhaps by some objective measure, but, again, that ignores the emotional component.

> but they're getting close already when you consider lifetime costs including fuel and maintenance

That's as may be, but lifetime costs are irrelevant if the barrier to entry (practical or emotional) is too high in the form of purchase cost.

It's not even necessarily irrational to decide to pay what appears to be a higher lifetime cost if ones personal "interest" rate in the TVM calculation exceeds the standard/average one, due to a high opportunity cost or just a high borrowing cost.