True, we have a lot of the infrastructure in place. But most of the brands that think they will switch all production to EVs are luxury brands.
A. Estimates are almost always too optimistic.
B. Most cars sold in the world are not luxury cars.
I think EVs will snowball, especially with features that ICEs can't match such as:
1. frunks
2. flat floors and more interior space overall
3. wheels that can be placed closer to the corners of the car (better maneuverability, so easier turning, easier parking, better stability, etc)
4. reverse charging that can even be used to power up entire homes, etc.
Unfortunately inertia is a powerful force, that's why I think critical mass will happen around 2030 and 2035 would be where I see sales of ICEs and EVs becoming equal. And then we need to replace the cars in use, keeping in mind that it takes 10+ years on average for cars to be retired. More like 20+ years in developing countries.
I think it's pie in the sky thinking to assume the kind of infrastructure change needed to convert enough ICE vehicles to electric vehicles to kill Toyota/Honda/VW/Ford/etc within 10 years worldwide.
Need charging stations built, parking lots ripped up and wires ran, local grids probably need upgrades, not to mention all the kinks to still work out that make owning a corolla/camry type vehicle far cheaper for 90% of people. EV is great for people who can afford to experiment and have a spare car, but people on a budget who need something that works, which is the majority, can't go for that yet.
The large perspective is that the transition to ev's is happening, with a thousand steps along the way. My guess is that by 2030 a considerable majority of new car sales will be ev's, and governments are going to have massive buy-back programs to get all the ice's off the road.
It'll play out in the opposite manner. The shift to EVs is going to happen first, followed by public transit. This is because EVs don't have a consensus / coordination problem. Electrifying a line or building a new line takes a minimum of a decade of planning, consultation, design and study, construction. But cars need replacement all the time and you can just go to a website and get an EV. Prices for batteries fall about 30% for every doubling of production. The spread of EVs is exponential, not linear. Sales roughly double every three years and many OEMs have stopped ICE development altogether. Once new car sales are close to 100% EV, existing stock will naturally die off.
Cars will electrify far faster than busses and trains in North America.
I do not expect the infrastructure for EVs to be built up enough in 5-10y for this to be the case. In fact, if the people start buying EVs faster than charging stations appear, then the opposite might happen and people will want ICE cars because they can't rely on being to charge them if on longer trips outside home range. The existing ICE infrastructure (gas stations everywhere) is not a thing that can be replaced quickly.
I'm not sure where you got that we need 1B of such vehicles. We won't. But of all the vehicles that will remain, I'm willing to bet that almost all will be EVs. Even if there will be a fraction of vehicles on the roads compared to today, they still won't be using ICEs. Hence, mass adoption of EVs is inevitable either way.
The use of electric automobiles is increasing, but there is a lot of disagreement about how fast it is going to happen in the future.
At one end are people who think there is a tipping point coming pretty soon, and by 2030 EV's will be the majority produced. At the other end are those who think adoption is going to be very slow, and in 2030 ICE's will still be the great majority produced, and that will continue for many decades. And there are various views in between.
So what is your prediction as to what proportion of autos produced in 2030 will be EV's? And what is your reasoning?
Charging infrastructure buildout will no doubt influence new EV sales, but the timeline of a transition to EVs on the road (as opposed to the dealer's lot) is largely a function of the secondary (used) market. The secondary market, I think, will transition slowly because as EV take-up increases, the price of gasoline is likely to fall.
Several manufacturers have already announced waypoints for their transition to EV. Audi is targeting 2026 for a full phase-out of ICE [0]. Among its light-duty products, GM aims to sell only ZEVs by 2035 [1]. Ford passenger vehicles sold in Europe will all be electric by 2030 [2]. I could list more, but the message is clear; it is an impending transition and automakers will likely use certain marques as a beachhead for going fully EV while keeping the ICE vehicles compartmentalized in other marques. A headline of "Jaguar plans to be all electric by 2025" is more compelling than "Tata Group plans to sell more electric cars by 2025," even though both headlines describe the same story. Similarly, automakers that have struggled for the past decade or two (eg, the American ones) seem to be taking this opportunity to redefine their role in the market as first-movers.
Price and perceived cost of ownership (net maintenance and repairs) are a major part of consumer choices, too. As an extreme example, look at places like Ecuador where new vehicles are so heavily taxed that it's common to see forty-year-old cars on the road. The old cars hold value because few can afford the new ones. If EVs are not price competitive, perhaps there won't be so many customers willing to pay a premium for them.
As far as I am aware [3], the current version of the infrastructure bill as negotiated does indeed include a hefty sum for EV charging stations. I for one believe this is an impactful decision given the long-known chicken and egg problem that EVs face. Ultimately, I think we are slowly reaching the point where the incentive for private businesses to install chargers is becoming clear. Tesla for one is opening its charging infrastructure to other brands [4].
I'm not saying EVs are going to overtake ICEV anytime in the next few years. But a 10% reduction in demand for gasoline would be huge.
Not sure I'm feeling as pessimistic on infrastructure. A bunch of the infrastructure for EVs already exists and is wired to every house. Even if we converted 100% of all newly sold vehicles to EV today, the grid build-out required wouldn't be any harder than what we've done in the past.
Cars will be a luxury due to unavoidable environmental regulations and general decreasing economies as the world's population gets older.
I am pretty convinced that my current ICE vehicle is my last one, or next to last one, and that probably I won't have a justification to buy an electric one after the end of life of my last ICE car.
Yes that's already happening right now. The premise of buying an expensive car is that you can sell it a few years later for a predictable price. Once that price collapses, things get ugly very quickly. Once new buyers suspect there is an issue there, they will be very reluctant.
So, the luxury car market will shift to full EV a lot sooner than 2038. IMHO that's happening right now and will largely have happened by 2025 already. It's the rest of the market that will take a bit longer. Not because of a lack of demand but a lack of supply: it will that long to build enough production capacity. And while capacity is limited, the high end of the market is more lucrative to use the capacity for. A Tesla model 3 with 20% margins selling for 40-60K is more interesting than say the equivalent of a Ford Pinto for 15K with 5% margins. The economics of that are different if you have enough capacity to do both of course but that is not the case yet. As long as battery production is a bottleneck, people will be looking to put them in high margin products rather than low margin products.
I'm skeptical that we will ever see a day where there are as many electric cars on the road as there are ICE cars today. That's not because I think people won't buy electric cars, but because I think people won't buy cars in general. In the western world we are rapidly approaching "peak car". The number of cars on the road today is simply unsustainable. I would not be surprised if over the next few decades, more cars are taken off of the road entirely than are replaced with electric.
I don't know what to tell you. You are acting like I am saying something that I'm not saying. Here is a simplified timeline that would meet the criteria I am talking about.
2020 - EV infrastructure works for a minority of drivers.
2030 - EV infrastructure works for the average driver.
2045 - EV infrastructure works for all drivers.
Also I was talking about conversion because it isn't like the ICE infrastructure is going to persist in perpetuity. That real estate can be converted over to public EV chargers as the ratio of cars on the road change. Right now Tesla's fastest chargers can do an 80% charge in less than 30 minutes. If the industry is able to cut that in half over the next 20 years, recharging an EV isn't really going to be any less practical than refueling an ICE vehicle. We aren't going to need a dedicated parking space with a dedicated charger for every car by 2030.
You say your last purchase was a 4yo car. A good choice for budget conscious buyers. In that case the ICE ban will not be relevant for you until 2034.
Depending on what country you’re in, the ICE bans being proposed does not encompass hybrid or plug-in hybrids. I’d be quite confident that the infrastructure is good enough by 2030 that most people would want a plug-in hybrid anyway. Think about it: at some point in the transition you’ll realise that your car will rapidly become worthless if it doesn’t have a plug. We’ve already started seeing gas stations close down or reduce the number of pumps here in Norway. I don’t think that point will be any later than 2035.
You say you don’t think the cars or infrastructure will be ready by 2030. I find that surprising. When I bought our Kia EV in 2015, non-Teslas had maximum 30kWh and had no benefits over gasoline cars, fast chargers were maximum 50kWh and there were very few of them. Now 60-70kWh has become the norm. Newer EVs have huge benefits over ICE cars (I LOVE being able to pre-heat the car no matter where it is parked in winter). 150kW chargers are standard and 250-300kW chargers are becoming increasingly common. Price for new cars is still an issue but i suspect it’s mainly because all the car companies launched their new EV product lines with luxury models. Their budget variants are starting to come out now.
By 2030 we will probably be getting a completely new generation of models. Look at what Hyundai is working on with their uni wheel system: with the next generation it’s plausible that EVs will start having motors on all four wheels, with independent torque vectoring on each motor, and steering on the rear wheels, while having even better interior space.
Okay, that’ll be mostly relevant to high end vehicles to start with. But the halo effect will probably be significant. By 2030 I think nobody can deny that EVs are inherently superior. You’ll probably have some with 1000km range if you throw enough money at it.
So what about budget models? We’re starting to see LiFePo becoming common for cheap batteries, and sodium-ion is being rolled out on a commercial scale. Hybrid batteries (combining two chemistries to get the benefits of both) are opening new possibilities. There are several dozens of giga-scale battery factories being built right now. All points towards massive pressure to drive down costs by 2030.
I suspect geopolitics will drive a massive shift towards EVs around 2030 as well. Imagine being the first country to be fully electric: you can shut down most of the gasoline supply chain freeing up a lot of resources. You’ll be fully energy independent. Swings in oil prices will not bother you. And you’ll have all the lithium and copper within your borders to keep your economy running forever. All you need is some battery recycling and manufacturing plants and you’re completely independent in terms of transportation energy infrastructure.
I think 30% by 2030 is overly pessimistic. I'm simply guessing but since average age of the car on the road in the US is about 10 years, cars bought today will be off the roads by 2027. In ten years it's reasonable to expect that every car manufacturer will have an electric car in every category for a price comparable to regular ICE. Considering environmental and health benefits of electric cars, together with factors like prices of gas, increase in power produced by solar panels etc it does not make sense to think that most people would decide to get the worse option (ICE).
I think by 2030 90% cars sold will be electric.
That assumes a free market. The UK where I live is planning to ban new sales of ICE cars from 2030 and hybrids from 2035. At that point, you either buy an EV or nothing at all (of course, the used market won't transition until later, but that will effectively be on a deadline too once new sales are stopped).
Personally I think 2035 is a more than realistic deadline for affordable EVs and the charging infrastructure to go with it. And the pre-announced deadline should hopefully give companies the confidence they need to invest in these technologies ahead of time.
There will then be another tipping point when ICE/hybrid ownership declines to the point that starts being uneconomical for filling stations to remain open and they start disappearing. At which point ICE cars will be decidedly inconvenient.
There is going to be a tipping point where things will start to change much quicker.
#1 Price of EVs is going down fast and will continue to decline as the price and weight of batteries drops.
#2 As vehicles on the road shifts to EVs, gas stations will become less and less profitable and the number of gas stations will decline, slowly at first, then very quickly in areas where land values are high and there are more profitable uses for land.
#3 As the number of gas stations decline, the single biggest advantage of ICE vehicles melts away and the fact that EVs are charged at home will become increasingly appealing. Gas stations will be around for a long time, but they will be increasingly scarce.
Obviously, we're nowhere close to the above happening now, but if 50% of cars sold are EV, the economics around ICE vehicles will change massively. There are a lot of other bits here too, ICE vehicles require lots of maintenance and dealerships will start to struggle as well with lower sales.
This is going to happen slowly at first, then it is going to happen very quickly once the economics and benefits of owning gas powered cars starts to break down.
Some will be. However I think we will see a cliff. As ICE cars become less popular gas stations and the refineries supplying them will close. This will start happening when EVs have been 25% of the new market for 3 years, and accelerate when they have been 50% for 3 years. By the time EVs are 75% of the new market gas will start becoming expensive and so EVs will quickly jump to 98%, and people with ICEs will start to plan trips around where to get fuel. That last 1-2% will be some niches that cannot use an EV for some reason, and so they will lobby to reverse the law - but by then it will be too late for ICEs: a few years latter those with an ICE will special order fuel from the last refinery remaining in the world.
It will start slow: gas stations will be less profitable, but investors/banks will take time to catch on so they will be built in larger numbers than the numbers justify (if you are an investor take note: there is opportunity to make money in shorts if you get it right - I'm not an investor so I won't be playing this). Then they will all see reduced profitability. When pumps break or tanks fail inspection someone will decide the market doesn't justify the investment in fixing/replacing them an so they will close and they won't be replaced (the part already happens, but there is some other new station nearby to make it up)
The next part will accelerate as unprofitable gas stations go bankrupt. We will probably see some over correction in places as a corner than had 4 stations but can now only support 3 will see several go bankrupt at once, and then the one that just manages to hang on will be wildly profitable.
The last part will see us where gas is hard to get. If you have an ICE it is no longer a case of when the fuel gauge is low you stop for fuel, it is you know where the stations you use are and ensure you can get back to them. when on a road trip you plan around where gas stations are (much like EV cars have to now, but soon an EV will find chargers every 20 miles and so won't have to worry - some places already have EV chargers that dense)
Note that I said nothing about refineries. Many of them have better management and are watching this. At least some are already watching this and making plans to reduce size as it happens, between that and non-travel markets they will be okay for longer and probably can spin down their business. Watch out for the small ones: some of them are only running today because when they shutdown they have to cleanup decades of pollution - expect a bunch of "EPA superfund" projects around them.
I believe Norway is already close to the first mark above, and probably other countries. I expect to see it show up in data (that I have no clue how to access) soon.
This won't happen until EVs roughly hit price parity with ICE. Most people aren't willing to pay more for an EV. Many people would pay a premium for ICE (for ease of refueling).
But once EVs are cheaper the change will happen quickly. But quickly in terms cars still isn't fast. Even if another ICE was never built or imported to the USA, it would probably take about 8 years for EVs to the majority. We keep old cars around for a long while.
Also, a lot of people assume self driving and electric go hand in hand. But really, there is no reason they need to. In fact, if you really do have a fleet of cars, that might make EVs less attractive due to charge time. Though you can make it work anyway.
Combustion engines are an inferior tech, so they'll get replaced everywhere they can be.
I also think we could have been a decade ahead on this transition, if not more, but I think you'll still also be suprised at how quickly EVs totally replace ICE cars, even if you live in some poorly run area of the globe.
EVs already have lower TCO and leasing companies are keen to loan you the upfront difference and let you pay it back month by month instead of spending it on gas and use the more reliable EV as collateral, reducing financing risk and cost.
They'll continue to do that as the upfront price drops below ICE too.
It would be nice if the US moved to a healthier, more walkable lifestyle, but if they do insist on continuing that form of slow suicide, it'll only make the transition faster. EVs make more monetary sense the longer you drive, due to lower fuel costs.
A. Estimates are almost always too optimistic.
B. Most cars sold in the world are not luxury cars.
I think EVs will snowball, especially with features that ICEs can't match such as:
1. frunks
2. flat floors and more interior space overall
3. wheels that can be placed closer to the corners of the car (better maneuverability, so easier turning, easier parking, better stability, etc)
4. reverse charging that can even be used to power up entire homes, etc.
Unfortunately inertia is a powerful force, that's why I think critical mass will happen around 2030 and 2035 would be where I see sales of ICEs and EVs becoming equal. And then we need to replace the cars in use, keeping in mind that it takes 10+ years on average for cars to be retired. More like 20+ years in developing countries.
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