Posts Tagged by EV adoption curve
EVWorld’s Bill Moore Speaks on the Future of Mobility
| October 16, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Here’s a wonderful presentation that everyone should see, EVWorld editor Bill Moore’s 30-minute talk called The Future of Mobility. What happens when we double the number of cars on the roads — from one billion, which we just hit, to two billion by 2030? Not too long ago, Beijing had a traffic jam that involved 75,000 cars and took five days to clear. Is this just going to get worse? And where is all the oil going to come from?
Automakers sure must be licking their chops at that growth curve. But are they doing some “out of the box” thinking here?
Here are Bill’s observations on everything from new drive trains to alternate fuels to rethinking the concept of owning a car. You won’t be disappointed.
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Predicting the Electric Vehicle Adoption Curve
| August 4, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Here’s the presentation — including the audio track — that I made to the Electric Vehicle Summit at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles last week.
In essence, my point is that, though I’m bullish on the EV adoption curve, and I’m excited that for once, the good guys have a chance to win big, there are several open questions. In particular, there are so many variables here that have the potential to turn the world upside down, that it seems a bit foolish to me to think that predictions that go out 40 years have any real meaning.
Having said that, EVs are vitally necessary to the well being of all of us. Sustainability (generally) can only come from national security, which requires energy security, which in turn requires weaning ourselves off of oil. And there are other imperatives as well:
Health: We spend $250 billion a year dealing with the lung damage caused by the inhalation of the aromatics of fossil fuels.
Peak oil. We’re running out of oil.
Long-term environmental damage: Global climate change and ocean acidification.
Yet I grant that EV naysayers have some good points:
Drivers demand absolute freedom, and will not deal well with range anxiety.
Consumers are risk-averse; no one wants to invest $30,000 in the automotive equivalent of the Betamax.
Most (though not all) consumers refuse to pay extra for a benefit that accrues to everyone (eco-friendliness).
Even if this weren’t the case, there is widespread confusion and apathy about the true ecological benefits. I’m astonished by the effectiveness of the PR team that has convinced a significant number of Americans that global climate change does not represent an important problem. Morally, they’re certainly not very upright people, but I have to respect their effectiveness.
So, how to promote EVs in the US? I would consider appealing to a sense of patriotism, as there is nothing one can do that is better for the strength of our country as a whole than ceasing our reliance on oil. Simultaneously, this would:
Reduce the power, and thus the threat, of terrorism,
Remove a great deal of the motivation for war, and
Stop the outflow of US cash to the tune of $1 billion per day.
In any case, I hope you’ll enjoy the presentation.
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Electric Vehicle Predictions for 2020, 2050
| May 1, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
EV buff Dick Schoen argues: “EVs, the 110 models coming into the US from forty or so manufacturers worldwide, cannot successfully commercialize without free public solar charging.”
I reply:
Dick: Thanks for writing. I have a great deal of respect for you and your thinking, and I would love to live in a world in which EVs are commercialized with free public solar charging. But personally, I don’t see it. In fact, though I’m not happy about this, I see the grid-mix as being pretty much incidental to the success of EVs in the marketplace. I’m betting that we’ll see something like this:
2020: 10% penetration of EVs
Early adopters, corporate fleets
Charging mainly at private or semi-private locations: home, workplace, corporate facilities
A few “opportunity-charging” locations, mostly Level 2, and even fewer (far from ubiquitous) fast-charging (Level 3) locations
Slightly cleaner grid-mix brought about largely by state RPSs (renewable portfolio standards).
2050 – near 100% penetration of EVs in every class of land vehicle except the largest trucks
Battery packs completely affordable, as we experience scale and incremental improvement in performance over a 50-year period (currently 8% per year, compounded; this adds up mightily of 50 years)
Design standards for batteries that are optimized for fast (Level 3) charging
Thousands of such stations deployed in all “developed” countries
A much cleaner grid-mix, as old coal plants are decommissioned and the cost of renewable energy continues to fall
As I’m fond of saying, the issue isn’t “Will it happen?” It’s “Who’s going to make a buck in the process?” I aspire to be one of them, and I’m rooting for you too! Thanks for writing.
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More on the EV Adoption Curve
| April 6, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Here’s a continuation of my conversation with a reader on the EV adoption curve, where he writes:
You are so right. Maintenance is an issue if you decide to own your car for a long, long time. But with a 4-year payback, the Focus will probably get by on just oil changes and some light maintenance. Leaf offers a 3-year $349/month lease with $1,999 down. So maybe a 3-year payback is necessary.
Fast charging is not a solution to anything. Fast chargers are very expensive and will never pay back ever. With electricity at 10 cents per kWh, they just don’t make sense…take a 100A at 240 VAC – 24kW, now you charge for 30 minutes = you use 12kWh times 10 cents = $1.20. Not much there for anyone.
Will EV costs come down? Maybe but very, very slowly. The Read More
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Electric Vehicles — Mitsubishi's i-MiEV Is Coming Soon
| July 6, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
The role I play as a partner in EVWorld.com enables me to have conversations with people very much at the center of the EV Adoption Curve discussion. I just got off the phone with Joe Delello, currently the man closest to the release of Mitsibishi’s i-MiEV, slated for November 2011 in the US.
I told him what cynics are saying about the sincerity of OEMs in the EV space (as if he needed to hear it from me), i.e., that there is no incentive for the OEMs to move this along as neither they nor their dealers make money. He made some good points, which I’ll share:
Automakers are understandably cautious. They want to see how batteries perform in hot and cold climates, they’re worried about lithium shortages, charging infrastructure – and consumer demand beyond tree-hugger early adopters.
However, he’s honestly optimistic. He points out that Americans have already shown how irritated they are at $4/gallon gasoline, and believes that gas prices are likely to generate demand from people who otherwise would not be interested.
Having said that, there will only be 2000 i-MiEVs sold in the US in the car’s first year –a year in which there will be 20 million cars sold with internal combustion engines. 2000 units? One out of 10,000? I should say that’s cautious – to say the least.
For what it’s worth – and I told Joe this – I absolutely adore the I-MiEV. I was lucky enough to test-drive one at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show – it’s a cute little rocket. And it will be priced significantly under $30,000 – much less than the LEAF. I could sell 2000 of them in Bismarck, North Dakota.
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The Electric Vehicle Adoption Curve in New York City
| May 30, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
In response to my piece about the EV adoption curve in New York City, Josh Levin writes:
Eighty percent of the adults who live in Manhattan do not own motor vehicles, and rely on buses, subway, taxis to get around — plus their own two feet … Manhattan is a rather atypical place. My guess is that only 1-2% of the US population lives in Manhattan or similar center-city areas.
Thanks for writing, Josh. You’re certainly right that Manhattan is atypical re: the issues facing car drivers. Every few years, I’ve been unlucky enough to find myself driving a car in The City that I love — but the driving climate that I royally hate. And yes, with the traffic, the parking prices, the super-aggressive pedestrians and bicyclists, the taxi drivers from hell, ultra-complex signs and rules, rudeness, double and triple parking — they have FAR bigger driving challenges than transitioning from ICEs to EVs.
To me, the EV slam-dunks of the world are places like Bermuda (thus my team’s concentration on bringing EVs there): low speeds, short drives, narrow roads, great incentives, ridiculously high gas prices, and an eco-sensitive and wealthy population. As I joke with my friends, if I fail with EVs there, I’m jumping off a bridge.
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Adoption of Electric Vehicles – Deloitte's Washing Machine Scenario
| May 24, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
It looks like Deloitte Consulting has taken another stab at predicting the EV adoption curve – this time pointing out a comparison to the long consumer acceptance cycle of the common clothes washer. Deloitte cleverly notes that 80 years were required to reach 80% of households in America. From this they suggest that electric cars will follow a similar long, slow, shallow growth curve.
I suppose, depending on the comparison you choose, one could suggest essentially any adoption curve at all. As I recall, people had a tough time selling LP records and turntables within about a microsecond of the advent of the CD. And we sure snapped up those cell phones in one hell of a hurry. On the other hand, mankind had footwear for many thousands of years before the introduction of the left and right shoe in the Nineteeth Century (that’s true, btw).
But one wonders: why did Deloitte choose to make a comparison to a technology that – due to a combination of unusual factors almost a century ago – was slow to take root? Who’s being served by this? Can anyone possibly think that this is a fairminded and sensible report?
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EV Adoption Curve — Market Research of Questionable Validity
| May 19, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
My fine friend and 2GreenEnergy associate Terry Ribb did a long and productive stint at Deloitte Consulting, and thus I tend to put special value on the reports I get from that esteemed organization. But when it comes to market research, they seem to have made the same critical mistake that most people do: survey the wrong people. Here’s their recent report on the EV adoption curve.
Do you note anything startling?
In response to Deloitte’s question, “From whom would you be most likely to purchase an EV?” the top three responses are Toyota, Honda and Ford – none of which even have EVs in production yet — and two of the three — Honda and Toyota — are openly waffling on the idea.
The report goes on to suggest that Nissan needs to work extra hard to promote its LEAF, since it seems not to have been noticed by EV buyers. Bull manure. I find it hard to believe that almost anyone of any real relevance to the survey would have named Nissan with its LEAF, GM with its Volt, Mitsubishi with its i-MiEV, BMW with its Mini-E — or any of dozens of other serious EV programs from established and new OEMs.
Think about this. If you were conducting an interview about attitudes towards professional baseball, and the respondent couldn’t name a single major league team, could you imagine any real value to the rest of the interview? My only take-away from this report is that the research effort itself missed the mark.
Here’s another post further confirming that Deloitte is taking a very strange perspective with respect to the EV adoption curve.
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Thoughts on the EV Adoption Curve
| March 16, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Every so often, I like to write a short article that gets us thinking about the rate at which electric vehicles will be assilimated into our culture and brought onto our roads, replacing internal combustion engines. Here are a few ideas to consider.
1) What does Big Auto think (or, at least, claim that they think) about EV production rates? Considering there are 230 million cars on the road in the US alone, the needle will not be moving in the short-term:
Nissan: Has pre-orders for 56,000 LEAF all-electric cars.
GM: Last year, had 50,000 expressions of interest in the Chevy Volt, though presumably that figure is somewhat larger now.
Mitsubishi: Bumped up its 2011 production schedule of the i-MiEV from 8,500 units to 9,000.
Better Place: Placed an order with Renault for 100,000 electric vehicles based on the Fluence ZE for its deal with Israel.
2) But is there any reason to believe anything coming out of Detroit?
Today, the population of Detroit is about half of what it was in 1950. The city has 33,500 empty homes and 91,000 vacant lots. A recent AP article asserts that vacant property totals 40 square miles. But Big Auto is not at all apologetic for the meltdown, and points out they couldn’t have foreseen the dynamics of oil prices that created sharp inflection points in the demand for fuel-efficient vehicles in favor of the Hummer and other gas-guzzlers. If this is false, they’re disingenuous; if it’s true, they’re incredibly obtuse. Either way, it’s hard to trust what they’re saying.
One thing for sure: there is nothing good in EVs for the big OEMs. They are happy to drag this transition out for decades, selling gas- and diesel-based cars and trucks as long as possible.
3) The Department of Energy apparently is not bullish on pure (battery) EVs.
Check out this report on the future of the automobile. Although the author sees lots of hybrids in our future, he really doesn’t see any pure EVs. Remarkable. I have to think this is simply a mistake.
4) Industry analysts are hedging their bets.
As reported in EV World, Accenture recently performed a survey that showed that six out of 10 consumers are more likely to buy a hybrid or electric vehicle “only when it is superior to gasoline-only models in every way.”
I understand that merely “being green” isn’t good enough for the vast majority of car buyers. But this report strikes me as the usual MBA malarky — a consultant who reads your watch and then tells you what time it is. What about the other 40%? Isn’t that a substantial market? And what exactly does “superior in every way” mean, exactly? How will the typical consumer react to a value proposition that includes dramatically lower fuel cost and huge reductions of other pieces of his total cost of ownership?
My belief: Give me a freeway-speed battery EV with comparable fit and finish to a garden-variety 5-passenger sedan, a 75-mile range, and price tag under $25,000 after rebate, and you won’t be able to manufacture enough of them.
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Brass Tack #1 and EV Adoption – Response from a Friend
| August 29, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Readers may be interested in the comments of my friend and client Serafino Carri, posted earlier. Sonny, as he is popularly known, being the good guy he is, wrote me a private email with his response, cautious about offending me with the candor of his remarks. I responded:
Sonny: Thanks so much for the excellent comments, and for notifying me about the typos, which I have fixed.
I truly appreciate your taking the time, and I don’t have a problem with your posting it to the blog; I value your ideas even though some (most?) are not in accord with my own. I’m sure other readers will appreciate your positions as well, and I see no reason not to publish them unedited.
You make some excellent points, the most interesting of which, to me, surrounds market demand, with your point about the $5 socks, i.e., most people won’t buy $5 socks made of organically grown wool when they can get perfectly good socks for $2.50. Yet, as I wrote just yesterday in the blog, all this thought — yours and mine — is mere speculation. Personally, I think my mink coat analogy is very powerful, i.e., that most people actually DO have sensibilities concerning other living creatures that can have powerful effects on their purchasing behavior. But I guess we’ll see shortly the level of demand for the Nissan LEAF, the Mitsubishi i-miEV, the BMW Mini E (which, at 200 hp, is a really cool car), etc. I’ll be very surprised if they don’t sell extremely well.
Please be aware that, even though I still support my mink analogy, I consider altruism a very small portion of the equation — especially in today’s financial climate. But I’m not sure how much we actually NEED altuism. A range of 100 miles will cause very little inconvience to the drivers of the vast majority of the 251 million cars on our roads right now. If a decent-quality BEV is available in the $25K price range, I’ll be stunned if they don’t sell like hotcakes. But again, we’ll have to wait and see.
And in terms of politics and political philosophy, you raise an excellent point about the “pollution tax.” The real problem that we EV advocates face is that, in the course of making a decision on how to move themselves around the planet, people are not paying the true costs. They buy gas, supplied by an oil company, and that oil company simply passes the cost of cleaning up the mess on to future generations.
If I were king of the world, I’d close that loophole this very minute. Immediately after donning my crown, the effective price of a gallon of gasoline would rise to include the cost of the healthcare to deal with the lung disease that is caused by burning it, and it would also include the cost of pulling the CO2 and other garbage out of the atmosphere. We’d have a level playing field on which EVs and renewable energy would be rightly perceived as the bargain of the millennium. And that, in very short order, would be the end of ICEs and the oil companies.
