‘Hum! Hum!’ Here come EV cars
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: THE REVOLUTION IS ABOUT TO BEGIN
Pretoria-born billionaire Elon Musk stole a march on his competitors with the launch of Tesla’s eye-catching electric cars, but now next-generation rivals are catching up.
Electric cars are coming fast – and that’s not just the opinion of carmakers. Total, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, is saying EVs may constitute a third of new-car sales by the end of the next decade.
The surge in battery-powered vehicles will cause demand for oil-based fuels to peak in the 2030s, Total chief energy economist Joel Couse said this week. EVs will make up 15% to 30% of new vehicles by 2030, after which fuel “demand will flatten out,” Couse said. “Maybe even decline.”
By the horns
Couse’s projection for electric cars is the highest yet by a major oil company.
Still, they’ll exceed five million sales in five years’ time only. Ten million sales are seen in 2026, rising to 15 million by 2028, and exceeding 20 million by 2030. China is seen driving demand, with Europe and the US seen as remaining strong.
Other oil companies have been trimming their long-term forecasts for oil demand.
Royal Dutch Shell chief executive officer Ben van Beurden said in March that oil demand may peak in the late 2020s. It set up a business unit to identify the clean technologies where it could be most profitable.
Electric cars are beginning to compete with gasoline models on both price and performance.
The most expensive part of an electric car is the battery, which can make up half the total cost. The first electric cars to be competitive on price have been in the luxury class, led by Tesla’s Model S, which is now the best-selling large luxury car in the US.
But battery prices are dropping by about 20% a year, and car makers have been spending billions to electrify their fleets. Volkswagen is targeting 25% of its sales to be electric by 2025. Toyota plans to phase out fossil fuels altogether by 2050.
Electric cars currently make up about 1% of global vehicle sales, but traditional carmakers are preparing for transformation.
In 2018, Volkswagen plows into electrification with an Audi SUV and the first highspeed US charging network to rival Tesla’s Superchargers.
Tata Motors’ Jaguar and Volvo Cars both have promising marques on the way too, and by 2020, the avalanche really begins, with Mercedes-Benz, VW, General Motors and others releasing dozens of new models.
New horizon
“By 2020 there will be more than 120 different models of EV across the spectrum,” said Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “These are great cars. They will make the internal combustion equivalent look old-fashioned.”