‘Killer blow’ coming in 2023

This story first appeared in the April issue of AutoTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE

Smaller pure-electric cars will have a lower upfront price than internal combustion equivalents around 2023.

This is the opinion of Dr Peter Harrop, a leading expert in electric vehicles and chair of the IDTechEx group in the United Kingdom.

He describes this as the “killer blow” for conventionally powered cars.

“Like most other new products, electric vehicles sell in an S curve of a slow start with over supply.

Then comes fastest growth with supply sometimes unable to keep up with demand, then comes saturation.”

Harrop says pure electric cars are now near to the fastest-growth stage at around a 70% increase in numbers sold yearly.

“Subsidies are already less critical because price parity is approached earlier with small vehicles.

“This time China is in sync with the rest of the world; it has the largest pure electric car sales and is expected to dominate global manufacturing of EVs just as it has grown to be the biggest global manufacturer of conventional vehicles,” Harrop says.

“Evidence from Norway – with the largest percentage of pure new EVs in the world – suggests that the biggest obstacle to speeding up the electrification of road transport could now be a lack of e-vehicles.

“The Kia Niro is on one-year delivery in Norway and the Tesla Model 3 is still keeping customers waiting.

Volkswagen even announced that the Passat GTE and the Golf GTE have been ‘closed to ordering’ due to the exceptionally long waiting times.”

Harrop says that in the pure electric buses sector, China rapidly deployed 400,000 – 99% of the total number in the world – then it collapsed subsidies causing a collapse in deliveries.

“The rest of the world, however, is beginning to compensate.

For example, Qbuzz in the Netherlands has ordered 159 pure electric buses, Helsingborg Sweden 76, Brussels Airport 30 and London 68 pure electric double deckers.

Cities across the UK recently placed a total of 263 orders for zero-emission buses.

“Warsaw will order 130 pure electric buses for delivery by 2021.
Kazakhstan is expecting 700 electric buses, and Azerbaijan another 500 over the next three years.

However, India has the largest potential with a government plan for an initial 10,000 pure electric buses replacing some of the 1.
6 million buses there – all of which must go, says the Indian government, sensitive to the deaths they cause.

“The Indian state of Uttarakhand has ordered 500 pure electric buses and Tata Motors in India has orders from six other cities for a total of 255 pure electric buses.”

Harrop says that China is now at the top of the growth curve and everywhere else is at the fast growth part in electric buses, but China may see another S curve based on free market demands when pure electric buses have price parity.

“Until now battery costs have been a primary impediment in the uptake of electric buses.

However, in an interesting development, busy bus routes are seeing progress to lesser battery reliance.

“Eight countries have 10-second charging super-capacitor large buses now and non-stop top-up charging in many forms has arrived from solar bodywork to intermittent catenary, rails, and coils in the road.

“Top-up, including stationary forms with gantries etc at bus stops typically leads to 80% less battery.

This, and the ongoing reduction in battery prices has led to some projections that the battery will be a mere 6% of bus cost in 10 years’ time

“This will hasten the day when the up-front price of pure-electric buses is at parity with diesel.

The rising cost of diesel powertrains also helps.

“When you take into account diesel fume reduction measures such as 48V mild hybridisation, and the extra cost of adding equipment to treat diesel emissions, we currently predict price parity of large pure electric buses by 2030 – but as we have seen so often with electric vehicles, the future can come early.”

Harrop says that the killer blows for conventionally engined vehicles will be 2023 for small cars, and nearer 2030 for larger buses.