From Guest Blogger Fritz Maffrey – Electric Transportation at the Tipping Point
When I received this from my colleague Fritz Maffrey, it occurred to me that others might be interested in it too.
Well a milestone has been reached, Nissan has now globally sold over 100k units of the Nissan Leaf (pictured). That is a profound proof statement; as I write this I note that outside a Nissan Leaf is charging.
The best estimates are around 200k electric vehicles will be sold in the US next year. The tipping point is tipping. Looking forward the best market research is now showing about 1.8 million PEVs to be sold in the U.S., not counting light formats, by 2020. Not that far off and with current estimates and battery progress trends looking more doable all the time.
Firms like Google are showing strategy cues, for example with their purchase of Uber and Nest, it is becoming increasingly clear that Google has intentions for transforming energy and transportation, with the home and car becoming part of a smart electric ecosystem very efficiently managed, advancing the progress clearly across boundaries in a transformational way, and there are others doing equally compelling things. Tech intends to transform things and they are.
We can not forget old Elon Musk, he is indicating that lower cost model is coming, and keeps expanding his solar charging network, he will have more surprises for us. His affiliated interest of Solar City is now possibly the driving force changing solar adoption in the US, but there will be other exciting competitive efforts.
The biggest names in Tech are now rushing towards advancing driverless vehicles, they see this as one of the transformative innovations and market opportunities over the next decade, and we agree. The auto vehicle and tech industry are all in here, and expect remarkable advancement here by 2020, some parts are ready now (for example, route driverless shuttle example of Induct in Singapore).
New products such as BMW offerings 8i and 3i, the new Cadillac, and others are adding advanced products to the mix. There will be a lot more and expect a major advance when battery costs go lower 2 years out.
The forces at work are amazing, they are transformational, and need new policy, infrastructure, and plans to advance the art. The world does work in mysterious ways, but the angels are now on the side of this all advancing fantastically.
Advanced cell phone saturation has the tech bigs looking at smart clouds, energy transformation, connected driverless transportation as among the huge next market opportunities, and they are resourced and driven to make it so.
-Fritz
