The United States is home to the largest passenger vehicle market of any country in the world. Overall, there were an estimated 254.4 million registered passenger vehicles in the United States according to a 2007 DOT study.
There are approximately 250 million adults in the U.S. I believe that works out to a little over 1 registered vehicle per adult. And when you adjust out the high income families that often own multiple vehicles per adult, I'd venture that the average vehicle per person in the U.S. for the middle/low income categories is actually below 1.
Do your math by household, not adult.
The truth that I think you're getting at is no one NEEDS electric (or hydrogen), and a business model that assumes that is doomed to failure. That was one of the many fatal flaws of BetterPlace. The Tesla business model assumes that there are enough luxury and soon mid-luxury customers that actually prefer their cars to gas cars to sustain their growth projections. This isn't or shouldn't be an ideological debate. It's simply a question of whether the car from T is better for or more desirable to that customer than the car from B, M, A, etc. It does have it's limitations, but for luxury customers those are minimal and seem to be outweighed by the other benefits. I agree that I don't see Tesla replacing Corollas on the timeline they claim, but I also don't think their sales projections assume that. They assume they'll take a significant chunk of the BMW 3 series/Audi 4 mid luxury market.
Some folks will buy electric only to find that the "fast charging" isn't so fast or common and they can't actually use their new car for their long trips. They'll sell it and go back to gas. Most customers will discover it more than meets their daily range needs, and for the long trips they will rent, fly, or hang on to that old Ford Explorer for that use. It will be a mix. But that mix will constitute millions of vehicles, globally.
I do agree Hydrogen is doomed to failure as a transportation fuel, partially because of what Elon said regarding efficiency and safety (but those are all surmountable tech challenges... of exactly the type Tesla is tackling), but more because of the value prop relative to its competition: diesel hybrid and BEV.
Vs. Diesel Hybrid - identical drive experience, very similar fillup experience (assuming equal availability), very similar environmental impact. The difference does not justify a multi-billion dollar infrastructure buildout.
Vs. BEV - by the time the hydrogen infrastructure could be sufficient to provide a better user experience than gasoline, BEV infrastructure will be far more prolific and charge times will be far shorter (and less relevant... once you cover a daily use, refilling becomes an annoyance whether it's 5 minutes or 30). I don't see there being enough customers remaining to justify the infrastructure for H.
I think if it makes it, it will be for to commercial trucking, like #2 diesel, and even there only because it's regulated... the trucking industry would rather stay on diesel.
whatever. Not everyone has 40amps spare on an open fuse in their fuse box. maybe on Mars, where you apparently live.
