Against what? Other habitable planets?

Since we are talking about something that is easily hundreds of years into the future, I'd suspect that any generalizations one might try to make about what government values are likely to be amenable to is probably meaningless.

A few hundred years ago it was unimaginable that church and state could ever be separated.. Time changes all things... even attitudes.

Even in families, the general trend is still going to be not having more than one vehiicle per licensed driver in the family. If one is going to own a car in the first place, why spend a lot more money on a car that does what you need most of the time when you can spend a lot less money on a car that will do what you need *all* of the time?

Most people don't need that

Irrelevant. It is what most people want, or else range anxiety would be a non-issue.

[ubiquitous charging] seems to be the case already

Only near very metropolitan areas. If you are needing to drive rural for any real stretch, then there's a problem. Sure that's not most people, but take a guess how many cars there are on rural roads every single day? It's not exactly a small numbeer

The Model S is cheaper than similar sedans

The model S costs $80k... which is a good $30k or more than what one could spend on a brand new car that is just as good in terms of features, but may not carry any sort of status symbol or prestige with it. Hell, it's $50k more than the most expensive car that I ever bought.

Most people (not all, but most), I'd dare say, don't want to own an extra vehicle that they only use when making extended trips, and don't want to deal with renting a vehicle if they can just as easily own one, spending a loss less money than they would spend buying an EV.

That's an interesting approach to what was actually a very well-presented argument... discounting the argument by saying "that's not important", without actually saying *why* it's not important. Clearly it's not important to you, but equally clearly, it's important to the above poster... what makes your opinion more valid than the alternative? And personally, I'd dare say that it's actually also important to most people or else the notion of range anxiety wouldn't be a serious problem in the first place, as the poster stated.

C) 1000 miles on a charge? Show me any common car that gets anything like that range.

One can easily drive 1000 miles in a single day in a conventional vehicle. Of course, one will have to stop for gas along the way, of course, but a fill-up on gasoline only takes a few minutes, compared to several hours for a battery recharge.

Or, they could have 2 EVs, and a third gas car reserved solely for longer trips.

Or... for *WAY* less money, they could just have two cars that they can use for anything that they want, and not bother owning something they hardly ever use.

Which is my entire point.

Perhaps you missed one of the points that I had mentioned, above, where I suggested that it would be most beneficial if an EV did *NOT* carry such a high premium. If a married couple is wanting to own two cars anyways, two vehicles that they can comfortably afford that both do everything that they need is going to make more sense than one vehicle that is so expensive that owning a second one, if they even still can, means having to settle for something that doesn't meet all of their needs at all, or buying a piece of crap car that they risk not even lasting until they finish paying it off.

You can't use a Tesla to travel 1200 km in one day... if you get an early start, you can do that quite easily in a conventional car, even including stops for gas, bathroom breaks, and meals (I do this every few years, in fact, whenever I travel across country to visit family). A great deal about owning your own car is about having the personal freedom to go anywhere you choose, and to do so entirely on your own schedule otherwise one may as well just rent a vehicle when they need one and spend a lot less money). I don't want to own two cars, so I will own one car that gets me absolutely everywhere that I might want to be, with the advantage that I don't have to rent a second car if I want to go anywhere outside of commuting range. If you think that this view puts me in the minority, well... let the figures for the number of electric vehicles on the road vs gasoline cars tell the real story.

I have no doubt that the E model will attract many more buyers.... but it's not going to put the final writing on the wall for gasoline cars. I'd expect it's not even going to make a statistically significant difference in the number of EV's vs gasoline cars on the road. I would love almost nothing more than to live to see the end of that hundred plus year era of the gasoline automobile, and Tesla, or any other current or future EV company accomplishing all of what I've mentioned above could probably achieve that.

As more info is discovered, exactly how earth-like the planet is might be determined over time, giving future generations something to shoot for. *THAT* is exciting.

We'll get there someday... barring some disaster wiping us all out here first before we become interplanetary. I'd give it no more than another millennium, which might sound like a really long time, but bear in mind that half of that time is how long it would take *light* to travel that distance.

That's all very well and good if you are never planning on taking any road trips... if you ever want to travel, you are going to need another car anyways, and unless one is hemoraging wealth, it is more prudent for an individual to have only one automobile. It might as well be one that you can use wherever you want to go.

Knowing its out there somewhere and actually finding something that fits the criteria are two different things.

Tesla has made an electric vehicle that doesn't make anyone with a sense of style want to puke, and that's a very good thing, but there's just a handful of things they need to do, IMO, to really knock the ball out of the park for electric cars:

1) One needs to be able to charge it quickly, perhaps with an upper limit of about 10 minutes or so, sufficiently to go approximately as far as one could expect go on a tank of gas in a typical car of today. I would not expect to be able to charge it this quickly on conventional house current... it probably would require a dedicated type of charging circuit. But this would make recharging a car at such places not significantly more time consuming than filling up a car with gas, and would make owning an electric vehicle vastly more convenient than it currently is.

2) Charging infrastructure needs to be ubquitous, so that if you can drive there in a regular vehicle, you should be able to get there and back in your electric car as well.

3) The pricing structure for an electric car should be comparable to that of an otherwise similarly equipped gas-powered vehicle... and should not carry a premium cost that is almost equivalent to buying an additional automobile. Making them affordable, in addition to the other two points, will mean that there's no reason for people not to drive one.

If or when Tesla, or any electric vehicle manufacturer, can hit all three of the above points, I'd dare say that the writing will finally be on the wall for the age of gasoline, and I think electric cars could outnumber gasoline vehicles on the road within a decade.

Why do you figure that actually having life should be a criteria for being earth-like? Like does not have to mean "exactly the same as".