Fuelled by electricity
The electric vehicle revolution is only just getting started. In the next year or two, the market could really take off. Do we have the infrastructure to cope with this? Johan Sjöberg investigates
There could be 50,000 electric and other ultra low emission vehicles in London in just four years’ time
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tarting next year, London’s fleet of black taxis will be going electric. From January
2018, a little over a year from now, no new diesel taxis can be registered. This illustrates the speed at which
the world of transport is switching from combustion engines to electric drive. Although the pace of change in the London taxi fleet is acceler- ated by the need to cut pollution in the British capital, it also shows how technology has reached a point where widespread use of electric
vehicles has become not just feasi- ble, but almost inevitable. We are at a tipping point. Consumers in the UK market
had five electric vehicles to choose from In 2012. Today, the number has grown to 39 while prices have dropped, the operating range of the batteries has improved and incen- tives have become more gener- ous. Between 2007 and 2010, the number of plug-in electric vehicles sold worldwide totalled just under 12,000. In 2015, sales exceeded hall
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a million. Over the last five years, global sales have increased more than ten times. In Norway, the country with the
most developed market for electric vehicles, 22 per cent of new vehicle registrations were electric in 2015. Other markets are in catch-up mode. In the Netherlands, plug-in elec- tric vehicles had 10 per cent market share in 2015; Sweden had 2.5 per cent; France 1.2 per cent; UK 1.1 per cent; and Germany 0.7 per cent. When market penetration in large
Photo courtesy of Transport for London
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