Originally Posted by JHZR2

Electric cars may become the norm. At minimum, something like the actual intent of the BMW i3, which has a battery for true EV operations, and then a mere 35kW engine, to give non0-trivial charging capability and a little boost, but essentially always able to be operated optimally loaded for maxmium SFC and optimized pollution characteristics.

The energy density of liquid fuels is just so much higher. Not even close. Batteries/hybrids make a major benefit on consumption in many ways, but not pure range and operations untethered.

Our pollution laws turn great ideas like the i3 into stupid ones, where the engine can only run in certain scenarios when the battery is too low, etc.

So Id bet on hybrids, or actually more likely, PHEVs, to get the best of all worlds, and then the optimization on the engines being limited to a small dynamic range.

As for jobs? Nope. Just trading one thing for another. All the suspension/interior/etc will be the same or worse. Youre just trading an engine person for an inverter and battery person.