I see Taler brought up, and it always intrigues me.

What is the current state of it? With the app it looks like I can add a bank potentially but there are no payment service providers populated.

Does it currently function in a way I could transfer money between myself and a friend?

At least from the wikipedia article, seems UnionPay can be used wherever Discover is accepted, as they have an inter-operative agreement.

It’s true it is an alternative, but it doesnt seem like a beneficial switch either.

I try my best, but always worth mentioning!

Thank you! I dont knoe if UnionPay would be better, but I did not know about it, so thank you for mentioning it!

Are there any up and coming alternates that someone in the US can use? Would love to support something beyond visa/mastercard. Or Paypal/google pay, etc. Wero not yet accessible, Taler seems to have no providers yet?

I don’t think innovation in the space is bad.

But I do think its complicated by distinction between where the energy comes from, how we get it, and how its stored.

We are largely pursuing electricity, which although imperfect, has the advantages:

• inertia of electric cars
• we already have an (imperfect) distribution system
• the source of that power can be changed.

distribution & competition

Gas has huge market share in part due to the fact it has a huge distribution system in place. If we use hydrogen, or something else, then scaling up production, getting it where it needs to be, and having the right new/clean equipment to get it into your car all has to be worked out.

If we have multiple competing technologies, then the user base is fragmented, and its difficult to trust that you will reliably find energy for road trips outside your normal stomping ground.

We have electricity almost everywhere, and many modern cars can be charged slowly even via 120VAC. So IMO it is the most likely candidate to compete vs gas, but would be invigorated by minimizing competition to encourage scaling fast chargers as “the choice”.

source of power

Electricity & batteries are (and store) the energy used, but where the power comes from is a different matter. Some places may source it entirely from renewable energy, some may source it from coal, or gas, etc. With electricity as the medium, we can phase from non-renewable to renewable as we improve. The ability to not care where power came from is quite powerful. If you have an alternate fuel that is 0% emissions, the electric cars can also benefit from it. All of that can happen behind the scenes with end users none the wiser.

imperfect

Electricity is far from perfect. The grids are probably undersized for fullscale use. Conversion, tranamiasion, and storage of electricity leads to Significant losses. Cold temperature impacts the battery. Mining for batteries, battery disposal/renewal etc. There’s a lot wrong.

But it’s what we’ve got so far that seems like it has the potential to break the stranglehold that gas has, and would still allow for innovation in where the energy comes from.