It's no secret, the electric vehicle revolution is well underway. Heck, as early as last November, Ford already had over 160,000 pre-orders for the recently released electric f-150. And now pretty much every big car manufacturer is relocating research and development from traditional combustible engines to electric ones. Meanwhile, the federal government, and many state and city governments are setting ambitious goals to get gas powered cars off the streets in the next 10 to 15 years.Â
This is cool stuff. The future is here. But our grid, already failing in so many parts of the country, is simply not ready to feed an electrified version of our current transportation fleet. That's why electric transportation in the USA has to look very different from the gas transportation landscape to which we've come accustomed. The electric revolution must coincide with a public transportation revolution if it's to work.Â
However there are huge hurdles standing in the way of the development of serious public transportation systems in most regions of the countries. Culturally, Americans, more than any other westerners, are very attached to their cars. The idea of catching a bus is just entirely foreign to many of us. Then there's the layout of our cities: They sprawl in ways that make them almost impossible to interconnect. Finally, public transportation projects are at the mercy of our public input system. And just like we see with our transmission system, a few angry voices far too often derail projects that would provide a huge net benefit to society.Â
Is there any hope for public transportation in the USA? Am I right in thinking it's a prerequisite to mass electrification in the transport segment?Â