The rise of the electric car

The UK wants to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Is the electric vehicle ready to take their place?

Is the electric car really coming?

Apparently. Ford’s CEO, Mark Fields, declared in January that the “era of the electric car is dawning”. VW thinks that electric vehicles (EVS) will account for a quarter of its sales by 2025; Volvo says all its new models will have an electric motor by 2019. The Nissan Leaf, the world’s first mass produced plug-in electric car, has sold 250,000 units since it came out in 2010. BMW, Renault, VW, Ford and GM have since all produced their own versions; while Tesla has shown that EVS can be luxury cars. Morgan Stanley estimates that 9% of the world’s cars will be EVS by 2025, up from 0.2% today; Bloomberg thinks it will be more than 30% by 2040. The days of the internal combustion engine, claims The Economist, “are numbered”.

Why is this happening now?

Because electric cars are getting cheaper to make, and because of government policy. Subsidies are generous, both in terms of direct grants and much lower road taxes; while emissions regulations are increasingly stringent, particularly in the three biggest markets, the US, the EU and China. In the EU, manufacturers’ fleets need to have average emissions of 95g of CO2 per km by 2021, down from 130g in 2015 (today the average new car produces about 120g per km). The UK wants to ban new purely petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040; Norway, France and India have similar targets.

What’s so good about electric cars?

The main attraction, of course, is that they produce zero emissions at the point of use. Electric motors are also more efficient than internal combustion engines: they are quiet, produce little heat, and deliver power only where it’s wanted; they don’t need to idle, and they can recover energy when braking, charging their batteries through “regenerative braking”. They’re small and light, but powerful – a Tesla Model S’s motor is the size of a watermelon, but goes from zero to 60mph in a Ferrari-like 2.5 seconds. And at present, a full battery charge costs only a few pounds. Electric motors are simpler, too: the Chevrolet Bolt’s engine has just 24 moving parts (with no pistons, gears or clutch), compared with 149 in a VW Golf, so in the long run they’re likely to be cheaper to make, and more reliable. Finally, in the future self-driving cars will probably be EVS, because they are easier for computers to drive and refuel.

So why haven’t EVS taken over?

In a word, batteries. The great advantage of petrol and diesel is that they provide a convenient, spaceefficient and relatively light source of energy. This is why such vehicles replaced the early electric cars, which led the US market before the Ford Model T arrived in 1908. The problem is still the same today: batteries are expensive, heavy and limited; they make EVS relatively unaffordable. The Chevrolet Bolt’s battery pack weighs nearly half a ton, and costs $15,000 – about half the price of the car. The average range of a petrol or diesel car is 300 to 400 miles. Until recently, EVS could not hope to match this: the Nissan Leaf’s range is 125 miles. Battery technology has improved: both the Bolt and Tesla’s mass-market Model 3 claim to have a range of above 200 miles, more than enough to cover most commutes. But that doesn’t solve the problem of “range anxiety”.

Why is range anxiety a problem?

Because, at present, finding a charging point is difficult if you’re out and about, or don’t have off-street parking by your house. Besides, charging is slow. The Nissan Leaf takes 12 hours to recharge fully from an ordinary socket; four hours from a specially installed recharging point; and 30 minutes for an 80% charge from an industrial rapid-recharging point. EVS are perfect for routine shorter journeys, but people also want to be able to go on occasional long trips.

Won’t batteries get better?

Maybe. Vast investment has meant that lithium-ion batteries have become much cheaper, more powerful, lighter and more durable (see box). Improvements in design may also mean that charging will get faster, too. Bloomberg thinks that by 2025, EVS will become as cheap to buy and run as petrol cars. But others are sceptical. Batteries are a matter of basic chemistry; improvements are slow and incremental. This may mean that plug-in hybrids – with both an electric motor and an efficient back-up combustion engine – and other technologies retain a share of the market.

And how is everyone supposed to charge their cars?

A massive network of charging points will need to be created across any nation that supports EVS, particularly in cities where many can’t recharge at home. There are now some 6,000 roadside charging points in the UK, but there are more than 25 million cars on the road. Charging these would make heavy demands on the National Grid: it estimates that peak UK demand of 60GW will rise by between 6GW and 18GW if electric cars become ubiquitous.

Will it all be worth it?

Probably. The great advantage of EVS is that they reduce local air pollution – the single largest environmental health risk, according to the World Health Organisation. But their overall environmental benefits depend on how clean the electricity used to run them is: China’s vast fleet of EVS runs off coal-fired power stations, so emissions reductions are small. Plus, making batteries is a dirty business, which has to be factored in. But there’s no disputing the potential gains: a recent study found that, using Europe’s relatively clean electricity mix, EVS – over a car’s life cycle – reduced emissions by 20% compared with diesel cars, and by 30% compared with petrol. And although some still have their doubts about batteries – Toyota is betting heavily on EVS powered by hydrogen fuel cells – the car of the future in the developed world is still likely to be a plug-in EV.