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[CrashCash]

I headed down (on my SR of course) last weekend to Colonial Photo & Hobby, which has been around since 1954. Delta Burke was grand opening hostess for the current location in '73 when she was only 16. Basically I'm trying to say they're pretty well established and they've got everything. It'd take another couple paragraphs to list all the stuff they have.

So I wanted some model airplane fuel tubing to split and use as edging in a project. I noticed they didn't have any. Nor did they have fuel tanks, and I looked at the display counter and the huge rack of gas engines was not there.

They are no longer stocking *anything* gas, since people have moved to electric cars/planes/helicopters/boats/subs/trains/drones since it's less messy, quieter, and less of a hassle.

Of course I completely understand, and I think it's a good idea myself, but it feels like such the end of an era. I feel really old now. But such is progress...

[nigezero]

Wow. It's evolution at work but sad nonetheless, I wrote a blog recently after realising that my two boys are unlikely to learn mechanical bike Maintenance like I did. Instead they'll  know all about electrics because I'm already on my second one

[protomech]

So I wanted some model airplane fuel tubing to split and use as edging in a project. I noticed they didn't have any. Nor did they have fuel tanks, and I looked at the display counter and the huge rack of gas engines was not there.

They are no longer stocking *anything* gas, since people have moved to electric cars/planes/helicopters/boats/subs/trains/drones since it's less messy, quieter, and less of a hassle.

Of course I completely understand, and I think it's a good idea myself, but it feels like such the end of an era. I feel really old now. But such is progress...

Motorcycles (active life typically in the 20 to 30 year range) and cars (active life typically in the 10 to 15 year range) will stick around quite a bit longer than hobbyist RC vehicles.

Eventually there will be a transition, and it's possible that we're seeing the beginnings of that transition now, with gas stations closing or consolidating and the US fuel consumption seemingly having peaked and beginning to decline.

There have been approximately 350k EVs and PHEVs sold in the US to date. Of the 3T miles the US drives per year, even an optimistic estimate of 10k electric miles per vehicle brings EVs to a whopping 0.1% of total miles driven. More of the overall reduction in fleet consumption is due to retiring older vehicles and increasing efficiency of even conventional vehicles.

But eventually gas will be reserved for true antiques. It just may be 30 years away.