Guest post by David Middleton
From the never-ending font of infotainment, David Roberts of Vox…
Electric vehicles are gaining momentum, despite Trump
Policymakers and analysts are digging into the details of how to get more EVs on the road.
By David Roberts Jun 28, 2018
The transportation sector today emits more carbon than any other sector of the US economy. And it is shaping up to be the next big battle in the long fight to decarbonize.
On one side of that battle: the Trump administration, a few US automakers, and Koch Industries, who would like to stymie or at least delay the electrification of vehicles and continue the use of fossil fuels.
On the other side: California, a coalition of like-minded states, most automakers, a growing roster of utilities, and climate hawks. All of them are eager to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles (EVs), so that the sector can be run on increasingly clean grid power.
Lately, the Trumpian side has had the upper hand. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has signaled that he wants to freeze fuel-economy standards at 2020 levels, while Koch-funded groups are fighting EV incentives and blocking public-transit projects around the country. And low oil prices have kept gas prices down, which means American consumers are once again opting for SUVs and trucks. Cars are practically disappearing from the market; Ford plans to stop selling almost all its cars by 2020.
But underneath the surface, there is a frenzy of activity on the other side. It’s not just that states are pushing back and beginning to set their own stringent goals (like California’s, to put 5 million EVs on the street by 2030). It’s also that a broader coalition is taking on the real nuts and bolts of electrifying the US fleet, working out the details and best practices that will be necessary to put ambitious plans into motion.
[…]
Are EV’s gaining momentum? Or does Mr. Roberts assume they are gaining momentum because the Peoples Republic of California is gaining momentum in setting goals? Or, do futurists simply have difficulty conjugating verbs?
Mr. Roberts included a nice Bloomberg chart of SUV’s overtaking boring old cars in US sales. If the article is about EV’s gaining momentum on the “front end of a steeply rising S-curve”… Why not plot a graph of EV’s gaining momentum relative to SUV’s… or at least gaining momentum relative to the cars that “are practically disappearing from the market”? Well, the short answer is that EV’s fall about 190,000 monthly units below the bottom of the Bloomberg chart.
Mr. Roberts…
However, Mr. Roberts does have a point: EV sales are what they are, despite Trump.
Regarding “gaining momentum”…
Definition of gather/gain momentum
: to move faster * The wagon gathered/gained momentum as it rolled down the hill.
I don’t think so…
Oh… Wait a second, Mr. Roberts also wrote this:
We are on the front end of a steeply rising S-curve, a rate of change not seen in the US transportation sector for decades. The temporary triumphs of the luddites in power should not obscure the fact that the work of making those forecasts real is beginning in earnest.
Are EV’s on the front end of an S-curve? Or are they on the steeply rising bit of an S-curve?
An S-curve is a logistic function. If EV sales are “gaining momentum,” they are somewhere between 10% and 50% of their ultimate market penetration.
If EV sales are following an S-curve and are on the cusp of the “gaining momentum” bit, they have already achieved about 10% of their ultimate market penetration. With a current market share of 1%, EV sales will max out at about 10% of US auto sales and peak EV sales growth will occur at about 5% market penetration.
Tony Stark Elon Musk and other futurists often claim that EV sales will follow an S-curve. This leads to the question, “Do they know that an S-curve is a logistic function?” I’m fairly certain that Tony Stark Elon Musk is aware of this… David Roberts of Vox, on the other hand…
So… Is the “S-curve” meme just a green propaganda tool to explain away the glacially slow pace of EV sales growth? Or do the S-curve aficionados not understand what a logistic function is?
Here’s the really funny bit: The longer EV sales plod along at a slow, linear rate of growth, the deeper the ultimate market share will be… if they are truly following an S-curve.
MAGA!
We know from the fires in Sonoma that California doesn’t exactly have a modern electric grid system. Maybe re-building after a few more fires might help, though my guess is they will rebuild just what they had with not modernization. Each time I think of EVs in California I see in my mind a view of a major expressway during rush hour.
So places like California and NY are grand experiments which is actually how our founding father designed our system of government. My problem has always been who picks up the pieces when their idiocies fail. Could California afford their view of the world if say Silicon Valley was in some other state or for that matter their old oil industry had never developed. Just consider the next great quake. California will expect the rest of us to come to their aid and bail them out because they will has spent all their money trying to “feel good.”
Elon Musk mentioned the S curve as an appropriate description of the rate of PRODUCTION as an assmbly line starts running. It had nothing to do with sales. With al of its problems and flubs, Tesla’s Model 3 production chart looks nothing like an S curve.
The “S curve” has nothing to do with Musk.
The claim that Trump is doing anything to stymie EV development is total nonsense – he did NOT attempt to cut out the govt welfare tax credit of $7500 for each electric car. And removing MPG requirements for a distant future will have exactly zero effect on EV sales. Dave Roberts is not very well informed about the state of EV development, so we need to tell this jerk that every automaker on the planet has multiple,even dozens, of EV models in development. Probably over 120 EV models will hit the showrooms over the next three years. Some automakers have plans to build only electric cars after 2019. What Roberts fails to do is to acknowledge the positive effects on EV sales as a result of govt subsidies. Not only do the Feds give an EV buyer a $7500 tax credit,but many states do so also and few are charging EV owners for road taxes, EV owners today are welfare queens who don’t even pay for highway maintenance. Let’s take away all those
subsidies and see what the effect on EV sales will be. Roberts has put forth a really ignorant argument.
I own an EV in WA State, and this state levies a punitive tax on EVs.
Details, please. It sounds unlikely.
WA State taxes EVs as an alternative to gas taxes. But there are exemptions.
https://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/altfuelexemptions.html
Commies in Olympia wrestled with themselves over what is more important, encouraging EVs or getting more money in their sweaty palms. Easy to guess which won. Green as in money won out over green talking points.
All of these exemptions have expired. They’re Democrats. They want your money.
But it made them feel good passing the temporary exemptions in the first place.
>>
Commies in Olympia . . . .
<<
Which is why I usually refer to our illustrious state as: “The People’s Republic of Washington State.”
Jim
Full name: The Dumpocrap People’s Socialist Workers’ Paradise of White Man Occupied Cascadia.
The state charges a $150 annual tax on EVs, supposedly to replace lost gas taxes.
The average EV is driven 9,000 miles a year and gets ~100 mpg-e. In gas terms, that would be 90 gallons a year. The state collects 49.4 cents/gallon in tax, which would be $44.46 on a car that gets 100 mpg. Even if we include the 18.4 federal gas tax (even though the state doesn’t send the feds any of the EV tax money), it would still be only $61.
So yes, it’s a punitive tax on EVs. Kind of funny, because the “progressives” who run this state are constantly bleating about eco-stuff. But they’re Democrats, so their lust for more taxes always takes precedence.
“The state collects 49.4 cents/gallon in tax, which would be $44.46 on a car that gets 100 mpg. … So yes, it’s a punitive tax on EVs.”
But if the gas car gets a realistic 25 mpg, one-quarter as good as 100 mpg, it would pay 4 x $61 = $244 for driving those same 9000 miles, $84 more than what the EV pays for using the same amount of roadway. It seems to me the EV is getting a cut-rate for is road usage.
Gas taxes are calibrated to fuel economy, but now the “environmentalists” of WA State are penalizing EVs because their equivalent gas mileage is too high. Bunch of phonies.
“Let’s take away all those subsidies and see what the effect on EV sales will be.”
In a few countries—I forget their names, or am unsure about them—where subsidies have been cut, sales have fallen sharply. Sales in Norway are high because of high subsidies and other perks that accrue to EVs.
I haven’t seen anyone bring up the fact that California mandates up to 13% of car sales to be ev/hybrid cars…
Maybe David Roberts could comment how much money the federal and state California governments have given Mr. Musk? Why do people that can afford an $85k car need a subsidy? The other problem I have with EV makers is the fact that they drink the coolaid so hard they go 100% electric when a hybrid would increase their market access 20X.
The only one I would even consider buying is the Arcimoto.
One development that might make fully electric cars more appealing to the general public would be if all the car makers agreed to design a single, completely uniform battery that can be removed in a minute or less and replaced with a fully charged one. Replacement could be done at roadside facilities (e.g. existing filling stations) which had the capability of charging multiple batteries, and had an inventory of the uniform batteries on charge and fully charged waiting to go.*
Worry about degraded capacity of an older battery could be alleviated by the users paying only for the kWh that the battery they just had put in could deliver, minus the kWh still in the battery that came out of their vehicle. Modern technology can make very good estimates of those parameters. Just as they pay for the amount of fuel they buy now at a conventional filling station.
Standardization of batteries across the entire fleet of vehicles ought to result in cost savings, Big cars and delivery trucks etc. could have two batteries.
Not a perfect system, but a way of making long trips and continuous vehicle use actually feasible with EVs. And it would not have to preclude vehicle owners charging their own vehicles.
I would never have a fully electric vehicle. Driving across northern Canada where gas stations are widely dispersed (and if you get to one in the middle of the night, it probably won’t be open) can be hazardous. The jerry can in the back of my truck has saved my bacon a few times. I might consider a hybrid though if they made them rugged enough.
* – ideally, the battery station would have a big diesel gen-set out the back for when the wind stops blowing and the grid goes down. Fossil fuel to the rescue.
First off, do you have any idea how much a machine that could swap out a 1/2 ton battery pack in just a few minutes will cost?
Secondly, if you can figure out a way people are going to swap out $20K battery packs and not have to worry if the one they just dropped off is brand new vs on it’s last recharge, I’d love to hear it.
The cost of the battery is what is in it, not what it’s shape is.
People are going to buy 2 $20K battery packs, plus the $100K machine that swaps out battery packs?
Really?.
Won’t ever happen.
In a prior discussion about EVs, I defended them on grounds of energy efficiency: the typical gas-powered car uses 22% of the energy of gasoline, while the U.S. electricity generation network uses 47% of the energy of its inputs. On that basis, we should encourage EVs, including with subsidies, I argued.
Well, my knee doesn’t jerk and I drink no one’s Kool-Aid. I always keep researching. And there has been a change. It’s recent, but carries big implications for the opinion I had stated before. Toyota has come out with a “Dynamic Force” engine that uses 40%-41% of gasoline’s energy. Mazda is getting ready to put the second generation of its Sky Activ engines (Sky Activ-X) into cars, and it will use 44% of gasoline’s energy. It has announced a project for a Sky Activ 3 engine that will use 56% of gasoline’s energy.
These developments are brand new (the current Sky Activ uses 27%) and are not in Toyota or Mazda cars yet, so they can be taken with a grain of salt — especially “Sky Activ 3.” That said, the Japanese do have a track record of delivering on their announcements. Engines in the 40% and above category constitute a genuine challenge to EVs’ superior thermal efficiency. Also: I independently researched the question of CO2 emissions and EVs. I don’t regard CO2 as a threat or a pollutant, but I did the work anyway. If the entire U.S. automobile fleet was fully electrified, CO2 emissions would drop by 3%. Meh.
If the Toyota and Mazda engines go into cars, and if they spread (through licensing?) to other engine makers and become standard, the case for subsidizing EVs gets much weaker. The only remaining pro-subsidy argument that I can see would be geopolitical, i.e. the fact that petroleum comes from some of the world’s most dangerous places, as opposed to coal and natural gas (not sure about uranium, which is more complicated given that fuel can be reprocessed), which are abundant in North America.
The above said, I think EVs are here to stay nonetheless. The manufacturing cost curve, plus future developments in the composition of batteries, will make subsidies a non-issue in the fairly near future. Other performance characteristics of EVs will make them desirable for many customers. They won’t do a damn thing to save the earth, not the least reason being that it needs no saving, but I do think EVs will be around, and that their market share will grow.
We are at the point with both fusion and batteries that solutions come down to materials science. The rewards are so fantastic that solutions will be found.
I feel confident of that, both because of the physics and chemistry involved, and also the titanic riches to be gained by the problem solvers, and benefits to humanity.
It’s only a matter of when, not if.
Those here who pooh-pooh human ingenuity should know better.
If EVs were so great, you wouldn’t be going on and on about “how great” they are or are going to be in the future. We’re talking about cars and motor vehicles, this isn’t a hard topic.
When the Ford Mustang made its debut in 1964, they flew off the dealer lots. Same thing happened when the Datsun 240z arrived in this country. Repeat performance when the Honda Accord arrived.
People don’t need to be told what car is great and what car they want. The fact that EVs and Renewable Energy need endless subsidies, incentives and government intervention to stay afloat is the definition of products that suck.
Humanity has benefited tremendously from the gasoline powered motor vehicle. Few things invented by human beings have done more for the advancement of humanity. Humanity has benefited even more from fossil fuel burning power plants–without them the modern world would simply not exist.
None of your future batteries that are never going to be invented will benefit humanity 1/1000th as much as current technology. The world doesn’t NEED your humanity benefiting EVs and magical batteries.
There are lots of things that the world doesn’t need, but wants.
Yeah, but nobody even wants Electric Vehicles. At least by any capitalist definition of desire. If three people in Des Moines want cast iron airplanes, and somebody makes them with a 100 Billion Dollar government grant, this doesn’t change the fact that essentially nobody wants cast iron airplanes.
No one wants them? Hmm, so people are being forced to buy them?
Ah, fusion. That’s been 20 to 40 years away ever since I started reading about it in the 1970s. Wake me up when we’re there. Thanks.
End all subsidies and mandates today, then, and see what happens. Cuz gang green has been telling us for 30 years that “…future developments in batteries…in the near future…” and it still hasn’t happened. It’s time to put up or shut up, in other words.
I’d be okay with ending the EV subsidies in return for a requirement that all new gasoline engines convert at 40% or higher. This isn’t a CO2 issue to me, but an energy conservation issue.
EV advocates have it half right about the superiority of electric drive: the half that starts with the motor. The advantages of electric drive systems have been well established and appreciated for decades. Electric drive locomotives dominate heavy rail; electric motors power cruise and container ships. AC induction motors have one moving part and only two friction points needing lubrication and sealing. Electric cars don’t need a cooling system, an exhaust system, a fuel system or a transmission. All-wheel drive EVs can synchronize front and rear motors electronically, rather than needing a transfer case and drive shaft.
But to get all these advantages you have to supply that motor with electric power, and this is where current EVs all fail. Locomotives and ships do it with large diesel generators, which works rather well as long as your goal is efficiency rather than elimination of fossil fuels.
EV advocates assume there is an imminent breakthrough in battery technology that will overcome the current limitations on cost, capacity and recharge. No one can predict or assume breakthroughs, so they may be right. But even if all the issues with batteries were solved, that would simply uncover the next problem with EVs: the charging infrastructure.
Most US local delivery grids don’t have the capacity to supply their current residential neighborhoods if each house had ~1.5 EVs in daily use. For neighborhoods dominated by multi-family housing (apartments and condos) the demand would be much higher and everyone would have to share a limited number of charging stalls. Substantial residential EV charging will require capacity upgrades to the residential loops and everything upstream. Not impossible of course; the widespread adoption of air-conditioning had the same effect in the 1960s.
Supercharging stations? Take a look around and estimate the number of fuel pumps in the metro region where you live. It typically takes less than 5 minutes to fill a passenger vehicle fuel tank. If a supercharging station can get you 80% charge in 30 minutes, a metro area would need roughly 4-6 times as many charging hookups as it currently has fuel pumps. Wikipedia:
There are probably more gas stations with more pumps in the metro Atlanta area alone than Tesla charging stations worldwide.
Then of course there is the problem of how to supply all those supercharging stations with sufficient power to meet the demand, especially as the same groups pushing EVs are also demanding changes to power generation that will both reduce the supply and raise the cost.
For these reasons I don’t think better batteries are the answer. IMHO the breakthrough we need, and should be working for, is liquid fuel cells. If we have a “broader coalition” busy “taking on the real nuts and bolts of electrifying the US fleet”, I suggest they focus on that.
A practical liquid fuel cell sufficient to supply a 150-200 HP motor would make EVs a reality rather quickly. The adoption curve really would be a hockey stick.
Electric vehicles are gaining momentum, despite Trump
They always start the fake-news right off the bat in the titles. How could Trump stop anyone from buying electric vehicles?
Rhetorical question of course…..
The initial move to SUV’s was caused by auto fuel regulations which manufacturers could not meet with large cars and station wagons. They met the regulations by dropping the wagons and steeply increasing prices on large cars. Instead they built substitutes based on truck chassis which weren’t subject to the same severe fuel restrictions. Unintended consequences.
It’s easy to make fun of David Roberts. I’ve done it myself on several occasions. But here I think is a fairly realistic look at the history of electric vehicle (EV) production and the likely future production:
1) The worldwide number of EVs on the road increased from 110,000 in 2012 to 1,900,000 in 2017. That’s a factor of 19 increase in five years. (It’s much more appropriate to look worldwide than to pretend the U.S. somehow the only important country when it comes to automobiles.)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270603/worldwide-number-of-hybrid-and-electric-vehicles-since-2009/
2) What is the future of EVs? Well, a good place to start to answer that question would be to ask the automakers. They’re the ones who will be making the vehicles after all!
a) HONDA
https://de.reuters.com/article/honda-strategy/honda-to-focus-on-self-driving-cars-robotics-evs-through-2030-idUKL8N1J42GB –> Honda
Honda established a division late last year to develop electric vehicles (EVs) as part of its long-held goal for lower-emission gasoline hybrids, plug-in hybrids, EVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) to account for two-thirds of its line-up by 2030, from about 5 percent now.
b) VOLVO
https://electrek.co/2018/04/25/volvo-electrification-plan-fully-electric/
Last year, Volvo announced that it was going “all electric“ by 2019, but it was actually only adding electric motors to each model.
Now, the company is clarifying its electrification plans with an announcement that they aim for 50% of sales to be ‘fully electric’ by 2025.
c) GENERAL MOTORS
https://www.wired.com/story/general-motors-electric-cars-plan-gm/
“General Motors believes the future is all-electric,” says Mark Reuss, the company’s head of product. “We are far along in our plan to lead the way to that future world.”
Reuss did not give a date for the death knell of the GM gas- or diesel-powered car, saying the transition will happen at different speeds in different markets and regions. The new all-electric models will be a mix of battery electric cars and fuel cell-powered vehicles.
I think Mark Reuss’s statement should be given particular weight. He’s the head of product for GM, and he unequivocally states that his company believes the future is all-electric.
We’ll see…but I think anyone betting against electric a decade or two from now is going to lose, big-time.
At least we can agree that it’s fun to make fun of David Roberts.
I think electrification will spread, but that anyone who thinks gas cars will be overtaken in a decade or two is going to lose.
Hard to say now much of manufacturers’ interest depends upon continued subsidies.
EVs will become common when and if electric tech improves, for batteries or some other system such as graphene superconductors.
Consumer economics, physics and chemistry will ultimately decide. Not governments.