Trend Tracker :: Blog Articles about "electric vehicles" http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/ Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:37:34 +0000 en Polls apart from reality http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2011/02/polls-apart-from-reality Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:37:34 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) One in three motorists would consider buying an electric car in the next 12 months, according to the release on a new survey by Motorpoint issued on 17th February.

To quote verbatim: "The online poll by the car supermarket giant found 41% of people quizzed were impressed enough by the new generation of electric cars coming onto the market such as the Mitsubishi iMiEV and Nissan LEAF to invest in one at some point in the near future. Over 1,900 people participated in the study at www.motorpoint.co.uk."

As researchers, we'd just note that no-one betting the farm on EVs should take too much comfort from this. No such percentage of the motoring population at large is ever going to buy any vehicle of any type in the next 12 months (note this was softened to "at some point in the near future")- roughly 10% of the UK car population is renewed annually.

And all should beware surveys of the somewhat ignorant. Granted there has been an enormous volume of media coverage of electric cars over the past year and more, but little of it has been able to make the average citizen familiar with the operational issues concerned with EV ownership.

It's not only retailers in search of a story whose surveys should be read with interest - and a pinch of salt. McKinsey & Co published a recent paper, The fast lane to the adoption of electric cars, suggesting that "Catalyzing early adoption could take less than most auto executives and policy makers think". The authors believed their consumer research on demand for electric cars in very large urban areas showed that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and battery-only electric vehicles could account for 16% of overall new-car sales in New York, 9% in Paris, and 5% in Shanghai by 2015.

Yet the authors also mentioned in connection with consumer education being critical for catalysing both early and mass EV adoption that, "Forty percent of New York and Shanghai respondents said they didn’t know much about electric vehicles and many were anxious about driving-range limitations. Few knew that battery-powered cars are relatively quiet and can potentially accelerate faster than conventional ones. And more important, many weren’t aware that electric cars help drivers save money on both fuel and maintenance in the long run."

Both electric car makers and politicians need more reliable pointers to how much they should invest in providing infrastructure and incentives to EV buyers.

Toby Procter (See ELECTRIC VEHICLES - Energy, infrastructure and Mobility in the Real World, 2011, on this site.)

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2011/02/polls-apart-from-reality#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2011/02/polls-apart-from-reality Needed for EVs to save the world: more R&D, less wishful thinking http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2011/02/needed-for-evs-to-save-the-world--more-rd-less-wishful-thinking Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:00:19 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) In December 2010 the UK government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change recommended cutting the UK's GHG emissions by 60% relative to 1990 levels (46% relative to current levels), by 2030. The UK would then require a further 62% GHG emissions reduction from 2030 to meet the 2050 target already legislated for in the UK’s Climate Change Act.

The CCC said this 2030 target could be achieved through reducing the carbon intensity of electricity by 90%, by dint of smart metering and adding the equivalent of 25 new large scale, low-carbon power stations (up to 40 GW) to the grid, with radical reform of the electricity market. Simple, then!

The CCC said a 45% reduction in surface transport emissions could be achieved, mainly via a 60% EV (Electric Vehicle) share of the new vehicle market, with 11 million electric cars and 1.5 million vans on the road by 2030. Hydrogen could be used to power HGVs and half of all buses. “More could also be done by Government to reduce car trips, by 5% by 2030, (through initiatives including encouragement of car pooling and use of public transport)" according to the CCC.

In 2009, just 55 new EVs were registered in the UK, out of a market of over 2m cars and CVs (according to climate change sceptic Christopher Booker’s blog - the figures aren’t official).

Yes we Cancun? No we Can't

When energy storage technology has to improve by a factor of five to seven; reduce in cost by two thirds; and last twice as long, for EVs to provide a real alternative to conventional cars and reach a 60% penetration in 20 years is a tall order. To say the least.

These figures aren’t ours, but US Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s, speaking at the Cancun UN climate talks, as reported by Reuters. Secretary Chu reckons competitive energy storage technology is about five years away. Let’s hope he’s right. Starting from scratch in, say, 2020, when the first new cars with truly competitive metal-air 'batteries' may be ready for volume production, a trajectory like that achieved by hybrid powertrains would achieve a market share by 2030 not of 60%, but less than 1%. With the limitations of li-ion batteries, it seems implausible that EVs will break out of a small early-adopter niche before 2020 to pump-prime the market. And when vehicles with second-generation, post-li-ion batteries do hit the market, the first-generation EVs, having cost twice as much as their closest equivalents when new, will be pretty much worthless, regardless of age or mileage.

0.8-60 how quick?

In 2009, a decade after the launch of the first-generation Prius, UK new registrations of ‘alternative fuelled’ cars, mostly hybrids, totalled 14,963 units, or 0.8% of the 1,994,999-unit new car market. Remember, unlike EVs, hybrids require no dedicated refuelling infrastructure, nor do they impose any range restrictions. No democratic government on earth has enough sticks or carrots to inflate natural demand from 15,000 units to 1.2 million.

We should respond to this cavernous gap between wishful thinking and evidence with more than mere irritation at the apparent inability of intelligent public servants to inspect real-world data. We should demand that they invest more intensively, not in funding EV production lines and incentives, but, like Mr Chu, in funding more powertrain technology research. The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency put US$400m into battery chemistries and other technologies considered too risky for the private sector. That’s not a lot compared to what was spent on bailing out Detroit, or the US$557 billion in subsidies that a report in The Guardian earlier in 2010 claimed the fossil fuel industry received in 2009.

At the same time, we need urgently to pull all available strings to de-carbonise electricity production. For now, we are still slaves to fossil fuels, while at this embryonic stage of 'EVolution', our politicians are over-investing in producing and subsidizing vehicles without seemingly understanding their infrastructure demands, market appeal or environmental credentials.

To quote Fuel Cell Today's newsletter from departing analyst Dr Kerry-Ann Adamson, “We need to work towards technology being politically neutral with government supporting the development of technologies that could play a role in meeting societal aims, not picking winners.”

We hope EVs will be winners for society at large rather than the few – tomorrow’s EVs, if not today’s – but there’s much more work to be done before we know how. Our forthcoming report on the subject explains why.



Trend Tracker'sEVs: Energy, Infrastructure and Mobility in the Real World is available to download and includes chapters on:

  • EV technology
  • Battery chemistries
  • Profiles of X EV manufacturers and Y traction battery manufacturers
  • EVs and power generation
  • Recharging infrastructure development
  • Oil and other critical resource constraints
  • Market penetration forecasts
  • Fiscal policies
  • Business models

This report is based on strategic research and three years of tracking developments in the EV and automotive sectors. No mere technology update, it offers uncomfortable advice based on a mass of technology, energy and resources data. It’s designed to help investors, politicians, environmentalists and senior executives in the automotive and power utility sectors get to grips with the dynamics and problems of what could be the most difficult transition since globalisation –from oil to electricity.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2011/02/needed-for-evs-to-save-the-world--more-rd-less-wishful-thinking#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2011/02/needed-for-evs-to-save-the-world--more-rd-less-wishful-thinking Subsidy junkies or realists? http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/12/subsidy-junkies-or-realists Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:02:34 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche was reported by Bloomberg to have said on 11 November at a corporate CSR event in Stuttgart that “Governments should offer consumers financial incentives to buy electric vehicles to help offset the extra cost for manufacturers to build the cars.”

Bloomberg made him sound as if he’d been living under a stone for the past several years. There’s barely any country in the world that doesn’t already offer what Dr Z was asking for. But he had a point. He and his competitors are investing in EVs and FCVs to meet mandatory emissions targets, but, as he said, “Even in the best case, the cost of electric autos might run several thousand euros more than conventional vehicles for the foreseeable future … we won't earn high returns from electric vehicles for years to come.”

EVolutionary fiscal policy needed

Any returns at all would be useful, but they might not be deserved from today’s drastically limited EV performance and astronomic price. Dr. Zetsche suggested that government incentives for EVs should be linked to technological advances such as battery performance, making an admirably direct reference to the absence of a conventional business case for building EVs with present technology until the oil wells have finally run dry.

Replacing oil for light vehicles is going to take all the time we have before the oil does run out, according to a new report from the UK-based automotive research company Trend Tracker, EVs: Energy, Infrastructure and Mobility in the Real World. But between now and the next $200/bbl oil crisis, only the subsidies that Zetsche and other OEMs are banking on can have any chance of making EVs seem attractive purchases. And until their range trebles, most EVs will be second cars for short-range commuting, sold in small numbers to affluent early adopters who will be the least deserving of taxpayers’ involuntary support. Alternatively, most may be bought by taxpayers for city councils' car clubs, like Paris’s Auto Lib project.

Would you Adam and EV it?

The same fairness problem applies to over-generous feed-in tariff subsidies for home electricity generation, as pioneered in Daimler’s home market. UK homes with solar PV panels on the roof can sell power for 10 times what a large wind farm gets. They can buy it from the grid at around 12p per kWh, and sell it back at 44p per kWh. And their output is going to be based on estimates only. “Come on in, you crims, the door is wide open,” as green campaigner George Monbiot put it. None of this will do much if anything to decarbonise the UK’s power mix. But greening the mix to produce genuine ‘well to wheel’ emissions reduction for EVs is one of the many conditions, besides vastly better batteries and a quite different tax system, that will be necessary for their successful evolution.

EVs: Energy, Infrastructure and Mobility in the Real World will be published in January 2011, with chapters on:

  • EV technology
  • Battery chemistries
  • Profiles of X EV manufacturers and Y traction battery manufacturers
  • EVs and power generation
  • Recharging infrastructure development
  • Oil and other critical resource constraints
  • Market penetration forecasts
  • Fiscal policies
  • Business models

This report from Trend Tracker Ltd., one of the UK’s foremost automotive research companies, is based on strategic research and three years of tracking developments in the EV and automotive sectors. No mere technology update, it offers uncomfortable advice based on a mass of technology, energy and resources data. It’s designed to help investors, politicians, environmentalists and senior executives in the automotive and power utility sectors get to grips with the dynamics and problems of what could be the most seismic transition since globalisation –from oil to electricity.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/12/subsidy-junkies-or-realists#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/12/subsidy-junkies-or-realists Only 5% of new car buyers are influenced by green credentials http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/only-5-of-new-car-buyers-are-influenced-by-green-credentials Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:33:43 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) Research released on 19.11.2010 by Bosch revealed that despite 69% of drivers claiming to do their best for the environment, only 5% of motorists buying a new car would be influenced by a car’s ‘green’ credentials.

The ‘Bosch: Driving Green Britain’ survey studied a sample of over 1,000 UK car buyers. When asked to rank what was the main influence behind their purchase decision, 63% of motorists surveyed said that price was the most important factor, closely followed by vehicle size (at 56%). Design, style, brand and safety were all rated ahead of environmental considerations.

This survey result followed a day after Trend Tracker director Toby Procter's visit to the third and final day of the inaugural ‘eco2’ transport show at London’s Earls Court, where the hall was sadly empty of visitors. The lack of obvious enthusiasm for lower carbon cars contrasted starkly with the enthusiasm with which powertrain innovations were being promoted at the LA Auto Show.

Only towards the end of the first half of 2011 when the pre-orders for the first mainstream manufacturers' EVs have been fulfilled will it begin to be clear whose forecasts of EV market penetration are most likely to prove true. Meanwhile, to help the industry and its stakeholders understand the issues that will need to be addressed if EVs are to take off in time to save us from the effects of Peak Oil, Trend Tracker is preparing a new report.
EVs: Energy, Infrastructure and Mobility in the Real World will be published in January 2011, with chapters on:

  • EV technology
  • Battery chemistries
  • Profiles of X EV manufacturers and Y traction battery manufacturers
  • EVs and power generation
  • Recharging infrastructure development
  • Oil and other critical resource constraints
  • Market penetration forecasts
  • Fiscal policies
  • Business models

This report from Trend Tracker Ltd., one of the UK’s foremost automotive research companies, is based on strategic research and three years of tracking developments in the EV and automotive sectors. No mere technology update, it offers uncomfortable advice based on a mass of technology, energy and resources data. It’s designed to help investors, politicians, environmentalists and senior executives in the automotive and power utility sectors get to grips with the dynamics and problems of what could be the most seismic transition since globalisation –from oil to electricity.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/only-5-of-new-car-buyers-are-influenced-by-green-credentials#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/only-5-of-new-car-buyers-are-influenced-by-green-credentials EVs: When to turn off the subsidy tap? http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/evs--when-to-turn-off-the-subsidy-tap- Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:02:34 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) Over the past century the use of cars has evolved to create an emergent organism which has oil in its bloodstream, and the auto industry at its heart, the supply chain, distribution channels and aftermarket as limbs. Its tentacles reach along the roads which control where we go and where and how we live, into the banks that finance the cars, and the governments that tax them and finance the infrastructure they need.

All that means swapping oil for electricity to fuel cars will do much more than displace the oil industry in favour of power utilities.

It will involve massive infrastructure investments, and additional demand pressure on energy supplies which already are constrained by overdue plant investment and the cost of cutting carbon. In the UK, just maintaining supply for current consumption levels will require about one-third of ‘current’ power stations to be renewed in the coming decade. Century-old grid networks require renewal and ‘smart’ reconfiguration around the world.

If it gathers pace, the great oil-to-electricity transition will ultimately require governments to replace oil-based tax revenues with others. Right now, an EV can drive 58 miles from Brighton to London for £1 of kWh. But before too long, current may need to be taxed as highly as petrol. Meanwhile, governments are giving cash away in piles – in grants for EV R&D, in tax breaks and other incentives for EV buyers, and in public EV infrastructure investment funding. It could amount to nearly €10k per EV.

This means that EVs are important for all of us – we’ll all be paying for them, like it or not. Beyond the short term, it’s not affordable. Yet to stop these subsidies before battery technology advances make EVs remotely competitive with oil at its present price would likely kill off the EV in the next five years, just as the energy density and ubiquity of petrol killed it a century ago.

Both the fiscal and technology requirements of the nascent EV sector get in-depth treatment in a new report from Trend Tracker: EVs: Energy, Infrastructure and Mobility in the Real World. It will be published in January 2011, with chapters on:

  • EV technology
  • Battery chemistries
  • Profiles of X EV manufacturers and Y traction battery manufacturers
  • EVs and power generation
  • Recharging infrastructure development
  • Oil and other critical resource constraints
  • Market penetration forecasts
  • Fiscal policies
  • Business models

This report from Trend Tracker Ltd., one of the UK’s foremost automotive research companies, is based on strategic research and three years of tracking developments in the EV and automotive sectors. No mere technology update, it offers uncomfortable advice based on a mass of technology, energy and resources data. It’s designed to help investors, politicians, environmentalists and senior executives in the automotive and power utility sectors get to grips with the dynamics and problems of what could be the most seismic transition since globalisation –from oil to electricity.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/evs--when-to-turn-off-the-subsidy-tap-#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/evs--when-to-turn-off-the-subsidy-tap- Could GE help EVs bust out of the green niche? http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/could-ge-help-evs-bust-out-of-the-green-niche Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:43:09 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) GE-WHIZ! GE has confirmed that it will buy 25,000 EVs by 2015 for its own fleet and through its Capital Fleet Services business – the biggest-ever single EV order. Could the global elec-tech. and asset finance giant bring profits for EV suppliers within sight?

GE will initially order 12,000 GM vehicles, beginning with the Chevrolet Volt PHEV in 2011, using a mix of PHEV and EV technologies to meet its own and client fleets’ needs. With 65,000 global fleet customers, GE’s muscle will help underwrite some of today’s EV production plans. But why this apparent generosity, given the uncompetitive cost of the EVs it will be buying?

Easy. With a portfolio of product “solutions” including WattStation charging stations, circuit protection equipment and transformers, GE believes that the EV market could deliver up to $500 million in revenue over the next three years to its businesses, including Capital Fleet Services, Energy and Licensing & Trading. If GE bought 25,000 Volts at their $41,000 list price, that would represent a modest 2% cost-of-sale, even if the Volts were written off after three years. Of course, GE will pay much less, after fleet discounts, US$7,500 federal tax credits and other EV incentives available in some markets. More like much less than 1% of its prospective EV-related revenues, factoring in prospective fleet leasing revenues.

As FedEx chairman, president and CEO, and Electrification Coalition member Fred Smith said, “By buying these vehicles, GE is helping ramp up production which will help lower the price of vehicles and their components and make electric vehicles more visible and acceptable to the public at large.”

But will more acceptable be acceptable enough?

If EVs can’t break out of the early adopter niche before massive subsidies are withdrawn – and with US taxpayers subsidizing GE purchases on this scale, that’s likely to happen before critical mass is achievable – GM, GE, Renault-Nissan and all the start-ups that have garnered cash from optimistic governments will have wasted it on technology that still costs too much, and seriously under-performs on range and durability. (Remember in this case that GM’s still a state-controlled business, so discounts tax incentives for GE’s EV orders will both add to the US taxpayer’s burden. So will public sector funding of GE’s EV infrastructure installation).

Trend Tracker’s report, EVs: Energy, Infrastructure and the Mobility Market in the Real World explores in detail all the fiscal and other issues that need to be addressed for EVs to go mainstream.

The report will be published in January 2011, with chapters on:

  • EV and Alternative Powertrain Technologies
  • Battery Technologies
  • Electric Vehicles and Power Generation
  • Recharging Infrastructure
  • Critical Resource Forecasts
  • Review of EV Market Penetration Forecasts
  • Funding the Transition from Oil: Fiscal policies and Electrification
  • Business models and Strategic Issues for Electric Mobility Providers
  • Electric Vehicle Manufacturer Profiles
  • Battery Manufacturer Profiles
  • References and Further Reading

This report from Trend Tracker Ltd., one of the UK’s foremost automotive research companies, is based on strategic research and three years of tracking developments in the EV and automotive sectors. It offers uncomfortable advice based on a mass of technology, energy and resources data and full understanding of automotive sector dynamics to investors, politicians, environmentalists and senior executives in the automotive and power utility sectors.

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/could-ge-help-evs-bust-out-of-the-green-niche#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/11/could-ge-help-evs-bust-out-of-the-green-niche Rare earth metals to get rarer faster? http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/09/rare-earth-metals-to-get-rarer-faster Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:34:44 +0000 office@trendtracker.co.uk (Trend Tracker) The New York Times reported on Thursday (22.09.10) that the Chinese government had officially denied halting exports of rare earth metals to Japan, in retaliation for the detention of a Chinese trawler skipper in a long-standing territorial dispute. China had already cut export quotas for the cerium, lanthanum, neodymium etc. etc. on which Toyota et al depend for their NiMH batteries, permanent magnet electric motors and much else besides, and has over 90% of the world’s known rare earth metals deposits.

Terrifying news for all who are betting on hybrids & EVs weaning us off oil. First they flood us with cheap exports of almost everything, then turn off the tap just when we get addicted. See the issue assessed in Trend Tracker’s forthcoming report on the future of EVs, of which more news soon. One point is clear: technology which depends on costly metals which may be depleted sooner than oil is something to be cautious about. But don't imagine we can relax with our nice, familiar petrol and diesel cars. They need platinum for catalysts, and cerium, Europium, Yttrium for glass manufacture, and goodness knows what else, too. What isn't getting scarce, apart from scare stories?

]]> http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/09/rare-earth-metals-to-get-rarer-faster#comments http://www.trendtracker.co.uk/blog/2010/09/rare-earth-metals-to-get-rarer-faster 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