Real cars run on electricity
In Norway, three out of four new cars sold today are electric. However, there are already 1.42 billion petrol-driven cars driving on the planet’s roads, and, at the end of 2019, less than half of one per cent of them were fully electric.
That picture will be changing quicker than most people realise over the next months and years. Already half a year later, in June 2021, Bloomberg reported about the ‘one per cent milestone’ being reached, symbolising that electric vehicles now constitute one per cent of all cars on the roads globally.
Today, just over 44 per cent of all electric vehicles are in China, about 35 per cent are in Europe, while North America is a distant third at around 17 per cent.
In Denmark, electric vehicles recently secured a significant spot as the Danish government announced a historic EUR 21.5 billion transport boost. A new infrastructure plan seeks to ensure that eco-friendly road paving, new battery-driven trains, and instalments of charging stations for electric vehicles tie the country together in a greener fashion towards 2035.
Crafted around Denmark’s binding climate law to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent by 2030, solutions for a more energy-efficient public transport system tally more than half the budget. As anticipated in the land of wind-swept Vikings picking the two-wheeler whether snowing or sleeting, 400 million euro is earmarked to get even more Danes biking.
EV announcements
Looking at recent announcements over the past few weeks and months, the automotive transition – the zero emission transport revolution – is finally beginning to materialise, after three decades of only talking about it:
100% zero emission vehicle pledges have been announced from General Motors in January, saying they will be fully-electric by 2025, from Jaguar Land Rover and Ford in February, and from Volvo, who will phase out its gas-powered engines and go all-electric by 2030.
Ford is also putting pressure on. By 2030, all Ford cars sold in Europe will be fully electric, the group’s management in the USA said. To get there, Ford will double its investment in electrification by 2025.
In Germany, Tesla is now building yet another gigafactory up from the ground just outside Berlin. It is going to produce half a million cars per year, according to Tesla’s plans. (More about that project below.)
Like it or not, what this goes to tell you is that the internal combustion engine will soon be gone.
Diesel car ban from 2025
Plans for a new electric vehicle revolution over the coming decade are in full force across many of the major economies in the world.
Starting in 2025, Singapore will no longer allow registrations of diesel cars — a target that has been moved up five years ahead of the initial plan, in an effort to accelerate electric car adoption.
In California, Govenor Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order to require all new cars sold to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
The United States is leaning in on a general trend, where Covid-recovery efforts also mean getting transport emissions down.
In the coming years the EU will start to tighten the fine on car manufacturers whose total car fleet does not live up to the increasingly strict emission rules.
As a leader in The Times concludes, it reflects that “a combination of regulation and market economy is probably a good means of tackling climate change”.
Europe is currently leading the transition in replacing their fossil fuel cars with electric ones in total market share. New data collected by Bloomberg shows electric cars in Europe make up nearly 12 per cent of the total passenger vehicle market share on the continent. That far outpaces other top economies in the world, with China behind at nearly 6 per cent and North America just above 2 per cent, Australia less than 1 per cent.
These are recent figures from the Electric Vehicle Council:
Justin Rowlatt, the chief environment correspondent for the BBC, has a long and useful explanation of why electric vehicles will take over the car market much sooner than most people think. The EV market, he says, is about where the Internet was in the early 2000s:
“Its growth was explosive and disruptive, crushing existing businesses and changing the way we do almost everything. And it followed a familiar pattern, known to technologists as an S-curve.”
Last year, global sales rose by 43 per cent in the United States, he reported — which means that “we’re already entering the steep part of the S.”
Nathaniel Bullard makes much the same argument in Bloomberg Green, writing that “peak internal combustion” may already be in the rearview mirror, and not just because of cars: last year, electrics were 44 per cent of two- and three-wheeler sales, and 39 per cent of bus sales.
Update on 26 February 2022 – Electric Ride Lab:
When Will Electric Cars Take Over
→ BBC News – 1 June 2021:
Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think
“I know, you probably haven’t even driven one yet, let alone seriously contemplated buying one, so the prediction may sound a bit bold, but bear with me.”
→ Bloomberg Green – 10 June 2021:
Peak Internal Combustion Engine May Already Be Years Behind Us
“While EVs are still a small fraction of passenger car sales, that’s growing—really fast.”
→ The Times | Editorial – 18 February 2021:
The Times view on car makers and emissions targets: Electric Avenue
“Vehicle manufacturers are adapting, suggesting that a combination of regulation and a market economy is a practical means of tackling climate change.”
→ Forbes – 15 February 2021:
Jaguar To Turn All Electric By 2025, Land Rover EVs Start In 2024
→ Newsweek / MSN – 1 March 2021:
Europe Leads the Way as Electric Vehicle Revolution Is Underway Around the World
→ Below2C – 6 March 2021:
Why My Next Vehicle Will Be Electric
“Change can come quickly, especially technological change. I’m still astounded that horses as the predominant form of transportation were replaced by automobiles in less than 15 years. Aside from creating a new car manufacturing industry, a massive infrastructure of roads, gasoline production, service stations and so on was created. All in less than 15 years.”
Clearing up some myths about EVs and renewables:
Australia’s electricity grid can’t support EVs.
Wrong. Not only can EVs be used to smooth peak demand on the grid by using software to determine the optimal time to charge (for example your car automatically charging at 1am to 5am when there’s low demand and cheaper electricity), they can also be used to augment the grid, and some EV models coming on the market are actually now capable of feeding electricity back to your house from their battery.
The energy required to charge an EV comes from coal.
Not for house-owners with solar on the roof using a green electricity supplier, and also not for the ultra-rapid charging stations – these are powered by 100% renewable energy and batteries, not a lump of coal in sight. Charging station site hosts who own a charger on Chargefox’s network (eg. shopping centres and councils) are encouraged to use renewable energy, and are working on ways to offset carbon for stations that aren’t able to do so.
Electric car produced in Australia
Greg McGarvie is founder of the Australian Clean Energy Electric Vehicles Group. The Australian motor vehicle industry has been declared dead, but Greg has defied all the doubters to establish ACE EV Group. The company has received two million dollars of pre-orders of the first cars to roll out from his new factory in Queensland.
→ ACE EV’s home page: www.ace-ev.com.au
→ Facebook page: Electric Vehicles Australian built
Meanwhile, in Australia…
In Australia, we have no targets, no significant incentives, no fuel efficiency standards – and in Victoria we even have a new tax on non-emitting vehicles.
Official new car sales data released today shows 558 electric vehicles were reported as sold during January and February of 2021, an increase of 105.1 per cent over the same months last year. Tesla sales are not included in this figure.
There are 20 million cars in Australia, and the Australians imports $30 billion of petroleum annually. A fraction of that could accelerate the shift to EVs.
As Australia’s largest member organisation for car owners, NRMA, put it: “We’d much rather people were driving around in cars powered by Australian electricity than in petrol cars running on imported fuel.”
→ Business Insider Australia – 25 March 2021:
Australians want in on the $46 billion electric car market but the government is making it basically impossible, according to one expert
“Australia is 10-12 years behind the rest of the world’s uptake of electric vehicles, according to e-mobility expert Dr Jake Whitehead. “If they were serious about climate change, they’d be serious about the uptake of electric vehicles,” he said of the government’s approach. Sales figures in China are expected to reach about 3.7 million in 2021, whereas growth in Australia has been miniscule.”
→ The New Daily – 10 March 2021:
Victoria goes it alone with electric vehicles tax this year
“A week after the Electric Vehicle Council released data showing EVs accounted for less than 1 per cent of total cars sold in Australia in 2020, The New Daily can reveal Victoria is the only state government with plans to introduce a levy on zero- and low-emission vehicles this year.”
→ CarAdvice – 3 March 2021:
Electric vehicle sales have doubled so far this year
“Sales of electric vehicles in Australia have doubled in the first two months of this year versus the same period in 2020.”
Turbo, tempo, Tesla… and trees.
Electric cars are referred to as being part of the environmental and climate solutions. But a car such as Tesla is produced with negative implications for people and the environment.
Watch this thought-provoking 43-minute documentary from ZDF, which highlights the catastrophic impact it has when weak politicians are unable to stand up against strong capital interests In Brandenburg in Germany, politicians allowed Tesla to clear 92 hectars of forest to build a new factory. The factory has a water consumption that is equivalent to 40,000 households on a daily basis and that in an area where drinking water reserves are vulnerable and limited.
Tesla and Elon Musk are pressuring authorities and politicians to change the area’s infrastructure to correspond with Tesla’s needs. The amount of water will exceed what the area can provide, according to exports. Annually, half a million electric cars will be produced in Grünheide in the German state of Brandenburg. Tesla’s Gigafactory 4 will be built in just one year with a 5.8 billion euro investment, starting already in July 2021, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plan.
Bloomberg podcast about EV strategies
On 15 March 2021, Volkswagen signaled its ambition to compete in the growing electric vehicle market by building out battery production and charging infrastructure, as well as adding new EV models. And in January, General Motors announced its plan to only sell zero-emission light-duty vehicles by 2035, on its way to becoming carbon-neutral. In this episode, Switched On discusses these strategies and the motivations behind these announcements with Colin McKerracher, head of transport research for BNEF, and electric-vehicle analysts Alejandro Zamorano Cadavid and Nikolas Soulopoulos.
→ Listen to Bloomberg’s podcast: Switched On: VW and GM rev up to challenge Tesla in electric vehicles
Questions and answers about electric cars
“There’s a lot of chatter about electric vehicles (EVs) around the world right now. With transport being the biggest emitting sector in places like the US and the UK, and growing fast in Australia, we know that we can’t reach net zero emissions without EVs. The reality is that many of us still need to drive to a lot of the places we go. Just as it is important for us to switch our energy sources, it’s critical that we switch our transport systems over too.
1 Million Women is so proud to be partnered with Nissan Australia and their 100% electric Nissan LEAF and today Nissan is answering some of your questions about EVs. From driving costs to their environmental impact, here are your questions answered:
– How much do they cost to buy and run? (Service and spare parts)
– When are we going to get more choice when purchasing an EV in Australia?
– Is it self driving?
– How is the electricity used to power EVs produced? What enviro impacts does this have?
– What’s the range & how do I charge it?
– How much would a battery cost and does Nissan recycle the old battery?”
→ The 1 Million Women team:
We’re answering your questions about driving an electric vehicle!
GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS RACE TOY CARS THROUGH LONDON IN PETROL PROTEST
Fully Charged Podcast: Flipping oil to electric. Globalism and Green Politics with Mats Larsson
“Swedish author Mats Larsson talks about the power consumption we use and how we use it in these Covid-19 times. How can oil power be replaced by electricity, is it viable, reasonable and inevitable?”
→ Climate & Capital Media – 12 February 2021:
EVgo’s Cathy Zoi says electric cars are here, and there’s no turning back
“The greenest car is the electric car you share”
Status after the first 18 months:
– 81 renters for 148 days who have driven
– 30,828 kilometres
Approx. CO2 savings: 5.2 tonnes
– Financial saving: DKK 77,429 = AUS$15,900
– Still no damages
The greenest car is the electric car you share
LejMinTesla.dk
~ Jonas Holm, Danish Tesla-owner
STORYCHANGE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
Prime minister Boris Johnson is set to adopt the recommendations made by the government’s independent advisory group, the Climate Change Committee. The recommendations require, among many other things, a reduction in miles traveled by car and more travel on transit and a massive increase in walking and cycling.
→ Forbes – 20 April:
We Must Cut Car Use To Save The Planet, Agrees U.K. Government