Edmunds, the auto research firm, came up with a grim report titled “Elimination of federal tax credits likely to kill U.S. EV market”. They title says it all. They predict that electric vehicle sales in the US will crash when the main automakers making electric vehicles will run out of the federal credits.
They are mainly coming to this conclusion based on a case study of what happened to electric vehicle sales in Georgia after they ended their own state program for electric vehicles. At least, they are acknowledging that upcoming vehicles, like the Tesla Model 3, could still bring EVs to a wider audience without the tax credit. Expand Expanding Close
It would have become the biggest electric car order ever, but several more cities have since joined the effort and they are now looking for 114,000 electric vehicles. Expand Expanding Close
The biofuel and oil industries, which were both heavily subsidized over the years, are now working together to lobby against electric vehicle incentives under the pretext that they are seeking “a level playing field”.
Their respective main lobbying groups made the announcement this week. Expand Expanding Close
A lot of electric vehicle charging networks in Europe operate only in specific countries, which can make it hard for electric vehicle drivers to road trip across borders. A solution has been introduced today to make European electric travel easier.
Today, five of the biggest network operators announced the ‘Open Fast Charging Alliance’, which “will enable roaming to create a premium network of fast chargers all over Europe”, according to the new group. Expand Expanding Close
Electric vehicles had a breakout year in the UK in 2016 and the market is off to a good start in 2017. Battery-powered vehicles are starting to represent a more significant portion of the total new vehicle sales in the country – it reached a record of 4.2% share of new vehicle registrations last month. Expand Expanding Close
A bill passed in Michigan in 2015 is about to kick in, making being a vehicle owner in the state more expensive than ever. The bill, which is part of a road-funding package proposed by Gov. Rick Snyder, will see cost increases across various facets of vehicle ownership, from annual registration fees to gas prices.
Those projected to be the hardest hit are people who own multiple vehicles and those who own fuel-inefficient vehicles, but while this may seem like good news to green vehicle owners, the bill is also introducing a surcharge on electric and hybrid vehicles for as much as $235… Expand Expanding Close
The state of California reached the milestone of a quarter million plug-in electric vehicles on the road since the resurgence of EVs in 2010. With 30 different electric vehicles available in California due to its ZEV mandate, the state is able to grow its EV fleet significantly faster than the rest of the US. Expand Expanding Close
The Obama Administration announced today a new series of initiatives to accelerate deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. The main announcement is the creation of 48 national EV charging corridors on 25,000 miles across 35 states.
It might sound like an obvious thing to most people, electricity is cheaper than gas, but I find that people are not really aware of the electricity rate discrepancy around the US and the world. It’s understandable. Who has time to track electricity and gas prices outside of your own market? Plugless has time and did it.
The company came up with a neat study looking at gas prices and electricity rates – without taking into account time-of-use rates where available – in each state over the last year and came to the conclusion that electric vehicles are cheaper to fuel in all 50 states. Expand Expanding Close
After coming to the realization that they would need a mandate for all cars to be zero-emission by 2030 if they want to comply with the goals set by the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions, Germany’s upper house of parliament gained approval for pushing a Europe-wide mandate to stop gas-powered car sales by 2030, according to German magazine Der Spiegel. Expand Expanding Close
With Jaguar’s recent announcement of their Formula E ‘I-type’ race car and one of their electric ‘F-Pace’ SUV prototypes being spotted in the wild, the UK-based company continues to be in EV news this week, this time with some reports about detailed information on the all-electric compact SUV, unofficially dubbed the ‘E-Pace’, that is now expected to hit the market in 2018.
A new research report from Lux Research looked into the projected growth of the battery sector for electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs) and concluded that the market will rise to $10 Billion in 2020 with six large carmakers led by Tesla accounting for 90% of the demand. Expand Expanding Close
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is out with its Energy Technology Perspectives report (via Carbon Brief). The agency compiled data from the automotive industry and determined that the world’s electric vehicle fleet surpassed the 1 million cars mark last year. Out of the 15 technology sectors to combat carbon emissions followed by IEA, the agency says that the EV sector is the only one on track for deployment. Expand Expanding Close
But while the Netherlands and Norway are fighting over the technicalities, a senior government official in Germany confirmed they will impose a mandate for all new cars registered in the country to be emissions free by 2030. Expand Expanding Close
This week, Daimler announced its plan to transition to greener technologies over the next few years. The company laid out release schedules for several new hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles, and all-electric vehicles across all its brands.
The plan is a little all over the place but we try to summarize it below and if that’s not enough for you, you can dive into the full press package further down. Expand Expanding Close
In the past, I have complained about mainstream media consistently putting all electric vehicles in the same melting-pot with no or very little regard for vehicle segments, or anything else than the powertrain really. I think EV enthusiasts are already very aware of this problem, but I still want to highlight this latest example because it’s simply a great one.
A Chinese startup backed by Beijing CH-Auto, Qiantu Motor, announced a new factory to build its first vehicle, the Qiantu K50 (pictured above), an all-electric roadster, which the media are presenting as a direct competitor to the Tesla Model S, a sedan. Expand Expanding Close
German newspaper Handelsblatt, which has often produced reliable insider reports on the German auto industry, now cites insider sources saying that Volkswagen is about to present to its board of directors a plan to build a ‘multi-billion euro battery factory’.
The publication suggests that the plan is likely to be approved.
The battery cell supply chain is close to the number one priority of any automaker looking to manufacture electric vehicles in high volume. Ever since the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, VW has been under pressure to introduce more electric vehicles to its lineup and earlier this year, it announced plans to introduce 20 new electric vehicles through the group’s brands by the end of the decade. Expand Expanding Close
Not much is known about Faraday’s first production car, but it is expected to be an all-electric luxury crossover with a shape similar to the outline in the picture above. The company is not sharing a lot of information, but this week gave us a glimpse of its engineering mule tests. Expand Expanding Close
Washington state currently offers a sales tax break on electric vehicles with a price tag of up to $35,000. It’s a well-intended and interesting offer, but in reality, it doesn’t apply to a lot of vehicles. Even for something like a Nissan Leaf, it only applies to the base model with a 24 kWh battery pack and no options.
Today we learn (via NW News) that Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation introducing a compromise that will allow more people to benefit from the tax break on a slightly more interesting lineup of electric vehicles.. Expand Expanding Close
Reuters last month reported that Google has been bolstering its self-driving car team as of late, and now as April rolls in, we’ve uncovered some more information on new hires as the team continues to expand. In one case, Google has added an ex-Apple global supply manager for the iPhone and the Apple Watch to the self-driving car supply management team…
Fortune is running a Koch Industry advertisement-as-commentary piece today ‘authored’ by Jim Mahoney, the employee signaled out in a Huffington Post article last month as leading a $10M campaign against EVs.
The piece doesn’t directly reference Tesla by name, but it does feature pictures of the Model S both in Fortune’s article and subsequent social media push by the publication (see above).
It looks like electric vehicles are still in the “fighting phase” as we learn today that billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are planning to back a new group of lobbyists with a focus on “boosting petroleum-based transportation fuels and attacking government subsidies for electric vehicles”, according to refining industry sources talking to the Huffington Post….
According to the Huffington Post, the Kochs are teaming up with James Mahoney, a member of their company’s board, and lobbyist Charlie Drevna, who until recently was the head of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. Their mission will be to “make the public aware of all the benefits of petroleum-based transportation fuels”.
Mahoney is a petroleum industry veteran who uses a few tired gems like: Expand Expanding Close
GULF OF MEXICO – APRIL 21: U.S. Coast Guard fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of offshore oil rig
The Bloomberg New Energy Finance report that came out last week (press release at bottom) says that in 25 years, electric vehicles will make up just 35% of new car sales. That means that in a generation from now, 65% of people will still be buying petroleum-based cars. It is hard to imagine a world where this few EVs makes any sense, even given BNEF’s own data.
The report and the numbers it presents are much too conservative for any reasonable circumstance. Take its own lede for instance:
“Continuing reductions in battery prices will bring the total cost of ownership of EVs below that for conventional-fuel vehicles by 2025, even with low oil prices.”.
Why would anyone buy a gasoline car when an electric or even a plug-in hybrid costs less than a gas car? Electric cars are cleaner, quieter, faster and safer than equivalent oil cars. Keep in mind that 2040 is 15 years after the cost of an electric car passes parity with oil in their scenario. Furthermore, by Bloomberg’s own estimates, batteries will reach less than one-third of today’s break-even prices.
At the core of this forecast is the work we have done on EV battery prices. Lithium-ion battery costs have already dropped by 65% since 2010, reaching $350 per kWh last year. We expect EV battery costs to be well below $120 per kWh by 2030, and to fall further after that as new chemistries come in.”
The US department of energy has a handy calculator (above, current prices) which shows that in every state in the union, even with insanely cheap gas prices, it is still on average 50% cheaper to run on electricity than on gasoline. That means once battery/electric engine powertrains reach parity with combustion, it is really game over for oil.
So somehow 65% of people in the year 2040 will want to pay a huge premium for a fossil fuel engine car? Even if the world weren’t heating up this makes no sense at all… Expand Expanding Close
On a recent electric road trip to upstate New York, I realized that, with the cold weather, my snow tires and a car full of kids who like to be warm, I would need over 30 more miles of electricity than my batteries could hold to make it home. Hitting one of Tesla’s speedy Superchargers would require me to veer across the Hudson River twice and add over a half hour to my trip.
Along the fastest route, according to the helpful Plugshare App, there were a few Level 2 charging stations. I can get 30 miles per hour of charge from my default Tesla cable so I figured that I could get most of the extra miles I needed while we stopped for lunch. There was also a highly rated Level 2 charger within a mile of our destination we could use as a backup (it is good to have backups!). I figured we were all set…
