Trend Tracker :: Blog Articles from 06/2010 http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/ Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:22:12 +0000 en Do Quangoids Dream of Electric Cars? http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/do-quangoids-dream-of-electric-cars Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:22:12 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) (With apologies to Philip K. Dick.) In July six electric Mitsubishi i-MiEVs will arrive in the North East for trials run by Cenex's Low Carbon Vehicle Procurement Programme at a leasing cost of £137,450 over four years, plus (we guess) around £6.5m for installing 1,300 charging points. The latter approximate figure is included in the last government's 'Plugged in Places' programme, channelled via the regional development agency One North East. In London, 20 Toyota Prius plug-in hybrids on lease will arrive on the fleets of various public bodies in London, courtesy of Toyota and EDF Energy. Similar trials are under way in the Midlands, funded by the Technology Strategy Board and Advantage West Midlands. Correction: funded by all of us.

By comparison with the <£5,000 subsidy the last government proposed paying to EV buyers, let alone the size of the national debt, the cost of these EV trials may seem trivial. But what are they trialling? Users driving within the restricted range of these i-MiEVs from one conveniently placed socket to another will undoubtedly say how great they are. But then, they won't be paying. Who'd want to pay £30,000 for essentially untried technology for a second car? (No current-generation automotive lithium-ion batteries have yet undergone their expected lifecycles. Without a battery, an EV is worthless, as CAP has reasonably determined.) EV buyers will typically need access to two cars, because their EV may barely take them 40 miles and back.

A recent forecast from J.D. Power Automotive Forecasting suggests that the global market for pure electric cars will amount to no more than 500,000 units in five years' time. As 40m+ annual car sales drive us towards a global car population of two billion, that's so far away from reducing oil dependency, it's hard to imagine that EVs will be any real help by the time the stuff actually runs out.

Yet the whole point of electric cars is help us survive the eventual end of the 'Oil Age'; With our present energy mix, they won't cut global warming emissions. We need to invest in better energy, smart grids, and much better energy storage, before pump-priming a fantasy market with trials of vehicles that aren't market-ready. Unless we soon discover the battery technology needed to expand EV demand beyond a niche market of do-gooders subsidised by taxpayers at large, governments' EV support will have proved an expensive diversion from other, more urgent tasks. Those include investing in more energy production, and reducing car dependency - not expanding the second-car population with ruinously expensive EVs, used by the few, paid for by the many.

Toby is the lead author of a forthcoming Trend Tracker report which will survey the activities of the auto industry, governments and utilities relating to the electrification of personal transport, and assess the likely outcomes of efforts to replace oil as its fuel by the middle of the century. Details of this report will be posted on this site nearer publication in Q3 2010.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/do-quangoids-dream-of-electric-cars#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/do-quangoids-dream-of-electric-cars Charting The Decline in SMR Work http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/charting-the-decline-in-smr-work Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:38:02 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) Download and read our latest aftersales article, published in the June 2010 issue of Auto Retail Networks' Bulletin.

Auto Retail Network is the leading networking and best practice organisation for senior executives in the auto retail industry. Get free trial membership by registering at The Bulletin.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/charting-the-decline-in-smr-work#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/charting-the-decline-in-smr-work Black and Blue in the Bayou http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/black-and-blue-in-the-bayou Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:28:48 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) Dr Peter Wells of Cardiff Business School's Centre for Automotive Industry Research (co-author of Car Futures - Rethinking the automotive industry beyond the American model”, available from Trend Tracker), speculated recently in Automotiveworld.com's Environment Weekly that BP's fiasco could prove a tipping point in the evolution of a market for electric vehicles. Market and public sentiment can turn bad on a dime, and BP's bonds have dropped to junk status, although with oil at $75 a barrel, BP is still gushing cash flow and can easily afford the $billion+ Gulf clean-up cost, and pay a dividend to its US shareholders.

Moving from the horrific to the trivial, my own diesel car sprang a fuel leak last night, and the sulphurous, stinking mess it left on the street was a reminder that there's nothing nice about oil, except what it permits us to do. But breaking oil dependency is going to be hard, BP or no BP. Working on a report the future of the electric car for Trend Tracker, I pay a lot of attention to the renewable energy sectors without which EVs can't do what oil-haters and greens hope for them. EVs are being hyped no end, but there's scant evidence of industry, money markets and governments joining forces to accelerate the switch from hydrocarbons with the urgency required.

Talking of urgency, the German government's refusal yesterday to lend to Opel is only the fifth story on the BBC website's business page as I write. And GM's site has yet to respond at all. The Obama administration has been lauded for allowing US automotive capacity to shrink to a probably sustainable level, and the Europeans condemned for funking the necessary restructuring. The freshly sanitized, right-sized GM can hardly complain if the Germans, now saddled with bankrolling the whole Eurozone, apply some of the same medicine that helped save what's left of Detroit.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/black-and-blue-in-the-bayou#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/06/black-and-blue-in-the-bayou