Electric Cars ARE Coming, But It Will Be Slow: Why Is This So Hard To Grasp?
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Major evolutionary change takes a long time.
That's as true for electric cars as for opposable thumbs--though it will be measured in decades, not millennia.
We frequently have to say that declaring plug-in cars a sales failure after 14 months (as certain commentators have done) is wildly premature.
So let's do a bit of context setting, shall we?
About 17,000 plug-in cars were sold in 2011. In their first year, the Nissan Leaf (9,674 sales) and the Chevrolet Volt (7,671 sales) both outsold the Toyota Prius hybrid on its first year in the market (5,562 sales).
Dueling headlines?
We expect plug-in sales roughly to double for 2012. That produces two possible headlines:
- Electric car sales double! or
- Buyers continue to shun electric cars
Each one is defensible, because the latter is accurate in the broader context of the market: Sales of tens of thousands of cars in a total U.S. market of perhaps 14 million vehicles this year are still an unimportant fraction of the market.
We'll likely see dozens of headlines this year, as we did last year, touting the predictions of one industry analyst or another on the increases in electric car sales this year, next year, and through about 2020.
Those estimates vary by almost an order of magnitude.
Utopians vs pessimists
On the one hand are what we think of as the "green Utopians" who believe that by 2020, 5 percent or more of the new cars on sale will have plugs.
On the other hand, the dour pessimists (with German diesel makers heavily represented) say that even 10 years hence, far fewer than 1 million plug-in vehicles--perhaps no more than 500,000--will be sold globally out of production that will have reached 100 million vehicles a year or higher.
Beyond 2020, by the way, we don't pay much attention to forecasts.
Many unknowns
A decade hence, there are just too many variables in play. Factors affecting the cost and range of plug-in cars (the main factors that affect their market prospects) include:
- Global oil prices
- Price-performance improvements in lithium-ion cells, generally estimated at 6 to 8 percent a year
- Stricter limits on carbon emissions (Europe, Asia) and gas mileage (U.S.) and requirements for zero-emission vehicle sales
- Government incentive programs, from electric-car tax credits to purchase rebates, high-occupancy vehicle lane access, and others
But overall, plug-in vehicles won't be a noticeable fraction of the overall market--by which we mean 1 percent or more--for several years.
In the U.S., that would mean 150,000 plug-ins a year sold out of a 15-million vehicle market.
Doubling every year?
Plug-in sales would have to double each year in 2012 (to 35,000), 2013 (to 70,000), and 2014 (to 140,000) even to approach that level. It took hybrid cars until 2005 to reach that level--or almost six years after the first one went on sale late in 1999.
And the U.S. may be one of the faster-adopting markets for plug-ins. Cost-conscious China isn't likely to be that accepting of pricier electric cars, nor are India, Brazil, Russia, and other expanding economies.
And those nations are where all the growth in global auto sales is coming from. The U.S., Western European, and Japanese markets are little more than replacement markets by now.
So, most analysts predict that plug-in cars won't reach 1 percent of the global market, or 1 million plug-ins a year, until 2018 to 2020.
Still, they ARE coming
While analysts vary in their estimation of the slope of the adoption curve, virtually all reputable analysts acknowledge plug-ins will come. But, it will be a slow emergence.
This should hardly be news, except to breathless commentators eager for gloomy headlines or particularly uninformed automotive journalists.
One of the big questions is when the tipping point in prices will be reached that consumers can comfortably compare a plug-in car to a gasoline vehicle of equal size and capacity.
Right now, a 2012 Nissan Sentra starts at $16,250, while the 2012 Nissan Leaf starts at $35,200. Those two cars largely won't be cross-shopped--despite the Leaf's much lower cost-per-mile and reduced maintenance costs--because one costs more than twice as much.
Electric cars cheaper, gas cars pricier
But as battery prices fall and electric-car production volumes rise, the plug-ins will get cheaper. And to comply with increasingly stringent fuel efficiency regulations, the price of gasoline cars is likely to rise in real dollars.
That means that, several years hence, today's $17,500 compact sedan getting 30 mpg may be a $19,000 car that gets 40 mpg (note: That's an example, not a prediction). Meanwhile, the plug-in car may fall from $35,000 to $25,000.
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For cheap bastards the only viable option is the LEAF. The Volt and Focus will follow as cheap bastard options once the price can come down $5,000, or the price of gas sky rocket, whichever comes first as they say in auto industry.
They are trying to find a balance between range and price. The most beneficial use of the Leaf is as a second "commuter car" for families that already have a car they can use for longer trips. Most commuters drive less than 35 miles round trip in one day. For them it is better to have a range that matches their needs at a lower price rather than spend more on range that is not needed.
they get what they can - part of capitalism and supply and demand.
a point about a "second" car - most people are talking about an ev as a second car, in that the family unit does not want to give up the ownership of a car that has a higher range.
however, that "second" car (if it is an ev) will get many more miles driven than will their "first" car.
And the cost of an EV is nowhere near $16k, as you apparently believe it is. Contrary to what so many here believe, at this stage of development, EVs are more expensive than ICE vehicles. I would think that would be obvious by now.
So, instead of selling an EV and losing $10k per vehicle, now the OEMs shoudl sell for $20k less each, triple the loss and then increase volumes?
Yeah, that's a winning strategy. EV credibility over profits isn't a long-term strategy.
Sure, if you drive inefficiently, you'll get maybe 70-90 miles of range, but that is a choice you make, it's not a function of the car.
As for family outings, going to work, or other normal driving needs. the EV is perfect. There is no need to get upset about whether your car will make it because when you bought the car, you already knew that it would be fine for the kind of driving you do.
So, do please enlighten me as to which statements (provide quotes, please) constitute "snake oil" in this article? I'm curious.
I am not sure what I am ignorant about. You cannot possibly make up the difference in cost between the 21 mpg car and the $36,000 Volt, purchase of solar panels, and the charger. I am guessing that your 21 mpg car had devalued as much as it can. It was free transportation. Your Volt started losing value as soon as you drove it off the lot. Your car is not a pure e- car. A Nissan Leaf is a pure e- car...nice review (http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2011-nissan-leaf-sl-short-take-road-test). Its practical range sux. I haven't stated anything that wasn't true. Enlighten me on where I got it wrong.
1.VW Jetta TDI – 47.3 mpg
2.Toyota Prius – 46.0 mpg
3.smart fortwo – 43.9 mpg
4.Ford Focus – 36.9 mpg
Stage Two – City Driving Results (132 miles, stop and go)
1.Toyota Prius – 52.4 mpg
2.smart fortwo – 34.0 mpg
3.VW Jetta TDI – 32.6 mpg
4.Ford Focus – 23.6 mpg
The prius gets better fuel economy and seats 5 adults and its a hatchback and can carry their luggage. In my family I have wife 2 children and 2 dogs. Why would anyone buy a Smartfortwo when there are other cars that get better fuel economy hold 4-5 people and their luggage?.
Yes the Prius will get slightly better mpg than the Smart but in congested towns here in the UK the Smart or IQ wins on maneuverability.Add to this there is only the two of us so taking anything bigger is a hinderance and is the very reason I choose the city car mostly.I do have a choice and find in our particular case its more practical size wise,in fact if it was electric all the better even with limited range.You seem reluctant to accept there are specific designs for specific jobs.I do know parking in America is nothing like here so a Smart is wasted but there "is" the rest of the world to consider!
prices will come down, range will increase - whatever is needed to sell the cars that have been manufactured.
it all comes down to 2 points, that are somewhat tied together.
1) how fast do the car companies want to sell evs ?
2) how fast can the car companies make the vast change in their manufacturing business.
if the bigwigs plan is to get off oil in one year, we would see this happen in one year.
if the bigwigs plan is to get off oil in 25 years, we will see this unfold over 25 years.
i am holding steadfast to my 10-year prediction. by then, i think that the price will have decreased enough such that few people will be buying NEW gas cars.
there will still be a lot of used gas cars sold.
but in comparison, how many ices will be produced ?
what i am guestimating is at what point will evs be dominant ?
that question all depends on price. range is only a small item, even today.
by that i mean that if an ev and an ice cost the same today, very few people would buy an ice.
of course not all bigwigs are on the same page.
but what the oil companies say is not really much of an argument.
what if in 10 years times, the oil companies said that plug-ins are here to stay ?
you gotta realize that what the bigwigs say is what they want you to think AT THIS MOMENT.
most everything you read is paid advertising of one sort or another.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1074183_how-much-and-how-fast-will-electric-car-battery-costs-fall
nor would any expert give a prediction based upon prior numbers.
but as with most topics, "experts" usually have no idea what is "gonna happen".
i still recall how "all the experts" were predicting chaos when the calendar struck 2000 - just a bunch of news hype.
as a computer person, i knew exactly what needed to be done to the programs. it was a minor fix.
there is one huge factor not accounted for, by basing any sort of prediction on prior events.
all of a sudden, we have a product that will ultimately use more lithium batteries than everything else put together.
a much better prediction is the old adage NEED IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION.
Uhhhhh...really?
"Nor would any expert give a prediction based upon prior numbers."
Gosh. So history has nothing to teach us?
LOLOLOLOL.
i gave you a perfect reason why predictions on past numbers were meaningless. and you completely bypassed it because you had not comeback.
so you decided to give me some LOL comeback ? well LOL back at ya.
and just to make your argument even look more ridiculous - one could very easily show that prior sales had very little to do with other items IN HISTORY when they were revolutionary products.
such as the computer, the ipod, and the cell phone.
come back when you actually have an argument.
The salient fact to this discussion is that improvements in PCs, iPods + mobile phones all benefit from Moore's Law, which says that the processing power of silicon circuits doubles roughly every 18 months.
There is no Moore's law equivalent f/Li-ion cell improvement that anyone in the field knows of. As covered earlier, the best estimates of Li-ion cell improvement in price-performance appear to be 6 to 8 percent per year. You choose to disbelieve that.
In my eyes, the argument that because iPods improve at a given rate, Li-ion cells should do so too is simply fallacious.
The period often quoted as "18 months" is due to Intel executive David House, who predicted that period for a doubling in chip performance (being a combination of the effect of more transistors and their being faster).
Source, slightly edited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
Looking at our market segment for the (then) current year, the experts predicted a hockey stick growth with linear extrapolations for the next 12 months followed by explosive rapid growth after that time.
Looking back through the previous five years, they predicted the same thing each year and each year it did not come true. So the next year they would predict even more radical growth 12 months out. So they were very bad a predicting...except
Eventually, their predictions did come to reality. So perhaps, "good" predictions with a time shift error.
Amusing to have both "linear growth" AND "explosive growth" forecast.
MrEnergyCzar
http://gas2.org/2009/12/01/with-new-battery-nissan-plans-to-double-ev-range-by-2015/
The cathode is generally graphite, but the anode may be one of several different chemistries:
- lithium cobalt dioxide (LiCoO2), used in mobile-phone & laptop cells, also the Tesla Roadster
- lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (LiNMC), as Chris O describes
- lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), as in A123 cells
- and there are others
Each Li-ion chemistry has different energy capacities, power characteristics, and decay rates. [cont.]
CoO2 also decays with time *as well as* with usage, meaning that it starts losing energy capacity the day after it's fabricated--and then it further decays with use.
Other chemistries do not decay over time nearly as rapidly, and are relatively less likely to self-oxidize. That's why no other carmaker uses CoO2.
Hope this helps a bit.
Regarding the article: So the variables are cost and torque?
first off, i do think that history is an excellent teacher.
but like anything else, it needs to be applied correctly.
if you want to provide an argument that is useful, you need to present something of a similar notion.
your argument about past events on lithium has a HUMONGOUS HOLE in it.
we now have a product that will use more lithium batteries than everything else put together.
any prediction minus that fact is totally worthless.
as i said previously, a much better adage is that NEED IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION.
people make all sorts of predictions, which are almost always wrong. but what the heck - no one remembers anyway.
of course not. so they can basically spout off whatever they want without really any consequences.
i did not see anyone predicting the humongous computer take-off until it was already happening. the same is true with many, many products.
just a little bit of simple advice that i am sure you will not take to heart - dont put so much stock in what you hear.
another old adage - believe half of what you see and nothing what you hear.
most of these old sayings have a lot of truth to them - which is why they became old sayings.
i wouldnt give you 2 cents on the dollar for your stance to be correct.
there was once a time when oil was a new commodity - at least one before it was being used to make our cars go.
now all of a sudden, we start making cars that use oil - a brand new product that will use more oil than every other product put together.
and you think that prior oil numbers are gonna have anything to do with future oil numbers ?
your argument just has a hole that the grand canyon can fit inside.
it assumes that we will still be using lithium batteries in 10 years.
i doubt that. we will have a lot of jumps in the next 10 years with battery technology. i dont even want to guess just what the bigwigs will decide to release - except that i think it is likely that we will have bypassed lithium altogether for some other sort of technology.
if that is true, then lithium numbers would not have anything to do with ev growth, since they would no longer be powering the vehicles.
10 years is a LONG, LONG time for this sort of evolutionary product.
Thanks, John. This needed to be said and probably will be many times over.
Did you know that an LCD plant for large screen TVs costs upwards of $3B?
First John Voelcker was careful to say that this was not a linear progression, but went in jumps as new technologies matured. This process is expected to continue but the timeline discussed, 3 to 7 years is short enough that one or two jumps will make a big difference and will thus come short of or be much more than the 7% linear improvement. Just how dramatic these improvements are and how soon they will reach market will make a big difference. Most people agree that the holy grail is the lithium-air battery and that this will not be commercially available until well after 2020.
Lithium-Air is also presently considered to be a theoretical limit, that is batteries will not significantly improve after the lithium-air battery is perfected. Maybe yes, maybe no. I can remember when "experts" stated unequivocally that hard disk drives would never exceed 1GB because of theoretical limits. Problem is that the "experts" are usually from academia and talk about the limits of the current designs and approaches, but the engineers building hard drives just looked at that as a challenge to figure out how to alter the design to get around those limits.
Nearer term we can expect 3 times range improvement at same cost and size in about 5 years. A big jump is coming.
I think the theoretical physical limit using electrons is still *much* higher.
Of course if you argue that the subsidies must continue ad infinitum to equalize the cost - then the arguement makes sense.
In my opinion (I'll admit - not researched) unitl we see increased range, reduced battery weight, rapid recharge, and larger cars, the EV will play a nitch role as a commuter car. Until then, hybrids will continue to be the mainstream alternative to ICEs.
But I don't know who is going to shovel off my solar panels during these pesky midwest winters.
I'm no engineer but I can see the potential improvement there.
The larger issue is that there is very little sun in the winter which shows the true benefit of fossil fuels (or liquid fuels if you like). Their energy can be stored away for use at another time months from now. That is not an easy thing to do with solar.
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