Define "mainstream" please.
You're about to have a massive Cybertruck plant built just NE of Austin. It'll be difficult to argue that EVs aren't mainstream as trucks loaded with new Cybertrucks and possibly Model Y's pass you on the road every day.
Eventually yes. We are not there yet. As one factory makes electrical trucks, more factories in Texas (San Antonio, Ft. Worth and so forth) and elsewhere are making many more gasoline powered trucks averaging 15 MPG or lower. Also as a factory makes electrical SUVs (or CUVs), many other factories are making gasoline powered SUVs that are averaging at best 25 MPG.
Nope, https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/ford-cancels-lincoln-electric-vehicle-program-with-rivian/
I predict adoption of the cybertruck will be exponential. Elon is making every possible politically correct effort to align his external communications with the expected cybertruck consumer base, i.e. he's being extremely politically right wing lately. I predict that his psy-ops will succeed.
But, but! You've gotta love how Elon has branded 'air suspension' as a 22nd century 'outta this world' invention, even though my 2010 Touareg rocks 4 corner air suspension...Shhhhhhhh! don't tell fanboi's!That cybertruck is the four wheeled equivalent of a man bun. I seriously doubt beyond the rich boy flavor of the week "look at me see how trendy I am" crowd they will actually SELL many. And in the time it took you to read this sentence, another new F150 rolled off the assembly line.
And before anyone says it, "taking orders" for something is not the same as selling them.
Besides, Ford has already teamed up with Rivian, so the second an uber ugly triumphantly expensive over the top electric "pickup" becomes "mainstream", Ford will have that covered.
I can see a range extender rental market emerging for the 1% of the time most truck owners tow something an appreciable distance.
That particular Rivian-rebranded-as-a-Lincoln has been cancelled, but Rivian itself is carrying on (and they've got a contract with Amazon to build delivery vans for them https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30768563/amazon-rivian-electric-delivery-van-revealed/ )
The one thing that always pops into my mind was the thousands of dollars spent to develop an ink pen that would work in zero gravity. The Russians used a pencil.
Actually the rockets were not based on Russian design but on German designs from the early 1940s.
The Soyuz? It has very little resemblance to the V2. We got all of the best naz! scientists in operation paperclip. Including Von Braun obviously. The Russians had some second tier German scientists, but they sent them back to Germany pretty early on in their program. Korolev wasn't particularly impressed by them.
