 |
| Smile - EVs are coming. |
The generally reported and accepted numbers are that 10% of all new car sales will be electric by 2020 and 40% by 2050. I disagree with these forecasts and believe that the market, whilst slow to take off over the next three years, will grow very quickly from 2015 onwards. Here are my 10 reasons why:
- EVs will be purchased by the influencers and high profile in-crowd that will give them cachet and desirability. Those from entertainment, music, the arts and creative industries.
- EVs will be purchased as company cars by finance directors seeking to reduce running costs and CEOs seeking the green badge. Once batteries are proven reliable and come down in price such that EVs are cheaper on a whole life basis than conventional cars, we will reach a tipping point.
- EVs are fun and easy to drive and to maintain. Once people experience for themselves the pleasure of driving electric they will not go back to noisy, dirty, polluting ICE vehicles.
- Renault-Nissan have invested $4 billion already and before the first EV is delivered to customers. Carlos Ghosn is a smart chap and he will ensure success (GM recently tried unsuccessfully to poach him).
- Better Place will create an EV ecosystem (with Renault Nissan) in Israel that will show the world EVs make sense (even if battery swapping does not).
- Governments will force through legislation to decarbonise. From an environmental perspective the current forecast of 40% of cars sold by 2050 will be EVs is far too low - 80% is where we need to get to in order to limit a global temperature rise that could mean serious trouble for billions of people.
- Governments have realised that the low carbon economy will create jobs. The new 'Space Race' is China vs the US for the EV market.
- Range anxiety is a very temporary affair. New chemistries will gradually deliver increased range at lower cost. Charging will get faster. People that live in houses will charge at home. People that live in flats will charge at work.
- The doom mongers and naysayers will be proved wrong. Jeremy Clarkson will find a way to endorse electric cars or risk looking even more foolish than he does currently.
- Like smoking, driving an ICE vehicle will simply become socially unacceptable and totally uncool (unless you live in Italy).
[Update 30/11/2010: The CEO of the UK National Grid plc, Steve Holliday, claims that 20% of all new cars purchased in the UK will be electric by 2016 and one million electric cars on UK roads by 2020. Seems like I have an ally who is similarly optimistic about the rate of adoption of EVs, even if he does have a vested interest in talking up the market].
