holds some truth; it’s still an ordi- nary car with a different driveline. But the infrastructure is the bottle- neck. There has to be an infrastruc- ture that works for people,” says Johan Konnberg, senior advisor for E-mobility at Volvo Car Corporation. “For as long I’ve worked with this,
sales volumes of electric vehicles have doubled each year. Do I think this will continue? I think it will accel- erate. Several car manufacturers are now launching some very attrac- tive models that are entering the market in 2017 and 2018. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think we will see a significant growth,” says Konnberg. One organisation that has
crunched the numbers is Transport for London (TfL), the local govern- ment body responsible for the trans- port system in Greater London. TfL believes that ultra-low emis-
sion vehicles, which includes battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehi- cles, range-extended electric vehi- cles and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, will represent 100 per cent of sales by 2040. In its most ambitious scenario, these vehicles will have reached 60 percent of sales by 2030. In a more conservative scenario, sales will have reached 30 percent by 2030. Under the conservative sce- nario, the number of these vehicles in London will be over 20,000 in 2020 and will be approaching 100,000 in 2025. This means a 25-fold increase in these vehicles in London, assum- ing the conservative scenario. In the more ambitious scenario, the num- ber of these vehicles in London is estimated to reach 50,000 in 2020 and reach 220,000 in 2025.
LONGER RANGE AVAILABLE Like Konnberg at Volvo Car Corporation, TfL recognises that the key to getting more electric vehicles on the road is a large number of charge points, giving users the confidence they can charge up when they need to.
32
Car manufacturers are now bringing electric vehicle technology to the market at a rapid pace
The organisation plans to use its own fleet and public sector procurement to accelerate uptake. A rapid charge point network will be deployed by 2018. Plans to provide charge points for residents without off-street park- ing are also taking shape. “Electric vehicle technology is
now sufficiently well developed for a wide market breakthrough. Many customers are asking for longer range, and this is something we see being delivered by major manufac- turers, says Francisco Carranza, managing director for Renault- Nissan Energy Services. “The trend towards shared mobil-
ity works great in tandem with elec- tromobility, reducing the number of cars on the road. This is a comple- mentary ownership model; we don’t see it as cannibalising the private ownership market. More efficient use will drive down costs and make car travel affordable for new users in markets where mobility would oth- erwise be too costly. Carranza also sees opportunities
for using the batteries of stationary electric vehicles as an energy store, a concept known as vehicle-to-grid. “Private cars are under-utilised.
Average usage time for cars is 4 per cent and average occupancy is 1.3 passengers. Vehicle-to-grid charg- ing could make use of the vehicle during the time it is not being driven. It could even open up for new owner- ship models. Imagine, for instance,
thinkingcities.com
that you might get paid to own a car. “The battery capacity of parked
electric vehicles can be used to sta- bilise the power supply when using alternative energy sources such as solar or wind power. Millions of cars can be consolidated to make up one large energy store. This can be a huge help to decarbonise the energy sector. “No big changes are needed to the
physical infrastructure to achieve this. The main obstacle is the national regulatory framework in dif- ferent countries, as provisions have to be made for selling electricity to the network,” concludes Carranza. So although a cursory look at an
average traffic queue may suggest that fossil fuelled private transport is here to stay, radical change may be just around the corner. ‘The stone age did not end for
lack of stone and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil,’ predicted Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani back in the 1970s. It seems he might have had
a point. FYI
Johan Sjöberg is a freelance technology journalist specialising in electric vehicles. He is based in Epsom, UK and Motala, Sweden
johan@sjoberg.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92