This article mentions that gasoline is likely to stay closer to $2 per gallon rather than $4. In a free market, that would also have an effect on the manufacture and sale of electric cars, which the writer (who's not often wrong about the auto world) says still largely depend on government forcing consumer acceptance of electric vehicles rather than there being any mass (voluntary) move towards them.

"A new government mantra is looming over the global auto industry: if consumers won’t buy what you think they should, limit their choices.

Hybrid and electric-vehicle sales account for less than 3 percent of the U.S. market. Tesla Inc., for all the hype powering its shares mostly higher, doesn’t make a profit selling pure electric cars.

And electrics represent a tiny fraction of sales in car-savvy Europe — which apparently is no barrier to France under its new president, Emmanuel Macron.

In a bid to bend the market, automakers and their product development to its will, Macron’s ecology minister said Thursday that France would ban sales of all gas- and diesel-powered vehicles in the country by 2040.

The move comes one day after Volvo Cars Ltd., the Swedish automaker owned by China’s Geely, said it would phase out gasoline and diesel engines in favor of electrified powertrains — without saying it’s mostly to meet greenhouse gas mandates in China and Europe."

Daniel Howes: Government drives electrifying autos, not market

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Here is an interesting article about a new battery technology.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev