Electric cars at a tipping point
2017 may be the year the future of vehicles arrives
Electric vehicles no longer seem like a futuristic fever dream, but they remain a rarity on most American city streets, accounting for less than 1 percent of the nation’s auto sales, according to the automotive website Edmunds.com.
Yet, when future auto historians look back, they may pinpoint 2017 as the year electric vehicles went from a promising progressive fad to an industry-wide inevitability.
The tipping point, experts say, follows three developments, each rippling outward with economic and cultural consequences.
China’s flexing: In addition to setting aggressive production quotas for EV’S, China plans to scrap internal combustion engines entirely as soon as 2030. By taking a lead role in the shift to plug-ins, the world’s largest auto market is forcing the rest of the international community to follow in its footsteps.
The debut of Tesla’s Model 3:
The company’s first mass-market vehicle has ushered in an era of excitement about EV’S because of the car’s slick design and starting price of around $35,000.
Major automakers announce plans for an “all-electric future.” General Motors finished
2016 as the world’s third-largest automaker, meaning its decision to create 20 new electric vehicles by 2023 is bound to have an impact on the global marketplace. Volvo, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Audi, BMW and Ford also have announced EV plans in recent months.
“You really do feel like this electrification thing is suddenly very real,” Jessica Caldwell, executive director of industry analysis at Edmunds.com. “There’s a momentum we haven’t really seen before. It’s coming from other countries around the world and from big automakers, and that’s CARS » 4K
forcing everyone else to comply.”
The all-electric future is still years away, experts say. But as EV momentum builds, we’ve listed five ways in which EV adoption is expected to play out:
Big Oil
Not so long ago, minuscule sales of EVS made it hard for big oil to take the threat of electric cars seriously. Now, thanks to growing demand in Asia and Europe, experts say, that’s beginning to change, even amid predictions that oil demand will continue growing in the developing world. The question facing experts is no longer whether EVS will take over, but when?
A Barclays’ analysis concluded that oil demand could be slashed by 3.5 million barrels per day worldwide in 2025. If electric vehicle penetration reaches 33 percent, oil demand could shrink by a whopping 9 million barrels per day by 2040, Barclays concluded. Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance puts the number at 8 million barrels by 2040, more than the “current combined production of Iran and Iraq,” they note.
Gas stations
Until charging times drop dramatically and superchargers become widespread, wait times for EV charging at gas stations could turn those stations into “hospitality-type venues,” according to Guido Jouret, the ABB’S chief digital officer, who noted that many gas stations make more money selling soda and food than they do selling gas.
Auto mechanics
One of the primary reasons that auto owners visit a mechanic is for an oil change, which raises a question: What happens when vehicles no longer rely on oil?
It’s not that electric vehicles won’t require maintenance (they still have brakes, tires and windshield wipers, after all), but their engines are far simpler, experts say.
“Basically these things don’t break,” Tony Seba, a clean energy expert and the founder of Rethinkx, a think tank that forecasts changes in the transportation industry.
Seba pointed out that there are thousands of department store and dealer repair locations — as well as about 70,000 mom-andpop repair shops — that will be significantly affected by a decline in business.
Powering the grid
We tend to think of EVS as consumers of electricity, but some experts believe they’ll be more like “mobile energy storage units,” as Forbes recently noted. Widespread adoption, experts say, may allow vehicles to transfer energy back to the grid when costs and demand are high and charge the battery when demand has waned.