And where this starts to make more sense to me is when we start to talk about shipping and autonomous vehicles. I think it's fair to say that autonomous vehicles would work better on streets designed with them in mind. And while you're making upgrades to infrastructure for them, why not do things like electrify major arteries between cities? That way you can have electric vehicles shipping goods that don't need to set aside a lot of space and capacity to transport the batteries needed to make the whole trip.
Smaller, lesser expensive batteries, lighter weight, shorter charge times, more space available for goods. They'd still have batteries to cover non-electrified portions of their trip.
To me a major plus of electric vehicles is to lower CO2 emissions. But no matter how you generate electricity there's an environmental price to pay, so we should make transportation as efficient as possible whether it's electric or not. Batteries are heavy in an EV and take up a lot of room. They also contain some toxic materials. Better battery technology will help but so will reducing the need for them in the first place. Why have a battery with 200 mile capacity if all you need is 40? If it's possible to have 60 miles of a 100 mile trip be "on the grid", I think that's a good thing to explore.
