Carmakers are going all in on electric
If you want to know what features will be standard on the average automobile in five years, an industry axiom says look inside next year’s luxury cars.
A peek into the 2019 offerings from Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Jaguar and Audi reveals batteries — lots and lots of batteries.
Elon Musk is in a dramatic race to produce an affordable electric car in large numbers because Tesla is about to lose its near-monopoly on the luxury electric car market. If Tesla successfully produces a middlemarket vehicle at scale, then electric car production will grow exponentially, transforming the transportation and energy industries.
No wonder Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is investing billions of his country’s oil wealth into Tesla and other electric vehicle companies. And Aramco, the national oil company, is considering a $1 billion venture capital fund focused on technology.
Next year Mercedes will begin producing the EQC, a crossover model that will be the company’s first all-electric car.
The German automaker is spending $12 billion on new electric-vehicle assembly lines to add more models soon.
“There is no alternative to betting on electric cars, and we’re going all in,” Chief Executive Officer Dieter Zetsche told Bloomberg News. “It is starting
right now.”
Porsche will begin shipping the Taycan next year. Twin electric motors producing 600 horsepower will accelerate the two-seater to 60 mph in under 3.5 seconds and still have a 310mile range.
“Our new electric sports car is strong and dependable; it’s a vehicle that can consistently cover long distances, and that epitomizes freedom,” Oliver Blume, chairman of Porsche’s executive board, said.
Audi is taking reservations for its E-tron all-electric SUV. Jaguar is also betting on SUVs, entering the electric-vehicle market with the I-Pace. Perhaps not the best names, but still fine-looking automobiles.
For the record, my wife and I have been driving our Chevy Bolt EV for more than a year now, and neither of us can imagine buying a new car that is not electric. We’re paying the equivalent of $1.15 a gallon for fuel, and maintenance costs are 80 percent lower than for our Toyota. There is a reason electric car owners are such annoying cheerleaders for their cars.
Musk certainly deserves credit for proving to the world that electric vehicles are viable with existing technology. But what’s remarkable is the innovation underway in battery technology that in five years will make internal combustion engines seem like 19th-century steam motors.
I first wrote about University of Texas Professor John Goodenough in April 2017, but recently the Wall Street Journal and Texas Monthly have highlighted his revolutionary work developing a solid-state electrolyte and a cobalt-free battery. The 96-yearold inventor of the lithium-ion battery believes he can double the energy storage capacity of existing batteries and cut the charging time in half.
Sila Nanotechnologies, a startup in Alameda, Calif., is focused on making battery anodes out of silicon instead of graphite. The company says it has found a solution that boosts battery capacity by 20 percent.
Goodenough and Sila face fierce competition, though. Musk and Panasonic are reducing the amount of cobalt in Tesla batteries, and British entrepreneur James Dyson, the re-inventor of vacuum cleaners, says he can also double energy capacity while slashing charging time for electric cars, too.
The U.S. Department of Energy handed out $31.9 million in research grants last month for developing new batteries. All of this research will take years to reach consumers, but it hints at why automakers are convinced electric vehicles are the future.
The last time I wrote about electric cars, skeptical readers pointed out that they are only as clean as their source of electricity. As for mine, I contract for renewable energy and charge between midnight and 4 a.m., when the Texas grid is mostly wind-powered.
Carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants have fallen in seven of the last 10 years as natural gas and renewable sources replace coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Other critics question whether the U.S. power grid can accommodate millions of cars charging at the same time. But electricity generators are excited at the prospect because electricity demand has been flat for a decade. Luckily, the uptake rate will be slow enough that utilities can upgrade to larger neighborhood transformers as part of routine maintenance and still expect good profits.
Demand for oil will not suddenly dissipate due to electric vehicle adoption, but it will be reduced. Houston’s most prosperous industry should not dismiss predictions of a transportation revolution. After all, I remember when old-timers harrumphed at unleaded gasoline and electric-powered windows.