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S TART YOUR BAT T E RIE S Electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid-electric vehicles broke the 1% threshold of global new car sales for the first time in 2017, a figure which may seem surprisingly low given the number of years the rise-and-rise of EVs has seemed just around the corner. A more interesting milestone last year may have been the
car-making giants’ commitment to an inevitable electric future. Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis, of Cardiff Business School, whose
roles include Co-Director Electric Vehicle Centre of Excellence, says he has been surprised by the exponential speed with which EVs have entered the mainstream. “I first started looking at electric vehicles in 1992,” he
says. “By about 2002 we still thought it would be long way
into the future. By 2010, we saw some movement, and by 2011 mainstream car companies started launching electrics vehicles—prompted by Tesla, who are a disruptor and woke everyone up.” Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), owned by India’s Tata family
via their holding company Tata Group, announced in September that all the cars it makes from 2020 will be either fully electric or hybrid—hot on the heels of Volvo, which made a similar announcement a month before. Both companies’ markets are primarily the US, Europe, and China—territories likely to have the basic infrastructure which could be developed to support widespread EV use. Bill Ford, chairman of Ford, announced in January that
the company founded by his great-great-grandfather would invest $11 billion into its EV strategy by 2022, saying all its “most iconic vehicles” (40 models in total), would be available either in hybrid or full- electric by then. Fiat Chrysler (part-owned by the Agnelli
family) will abandon internal combustions cars entirely by the same date, while Volkswagen (Porche/Piech families) and Toyota—presided over by the founder’s grandson Akio Toyoda— have made bold moves towards electrification. KPMG’s Global Automotive Executive Survey,
which surveyed 900 industry executives from 43 countries, found they predicted that by 2040, the market would be split into roughly equal shares for battery-powered electric vehicles (26%), hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (25%), hybrids (24%), and internal combustion engine vehicles (25%). Dr Nieuwenhuis says “flexibility” is the
key for family-controlled and run carmakers looking to cope with rapid change.
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It’s wanting to have something to hand over to the next generation which perhaps gives family businesses more of a survival instinct “So long as they don’t think of
themselves as an internal combustion engine car maker, but think of themselves as a family business that needs to adapt, I think they will take very quickly. “It’s wanting to have something to
hand over to the next generation which perhaps gives family businesses more of a survival instinct.” BMW, controlled by Germany’s
Quandt family, is arguably giving less attention to stating its intentions, and more to putting EVs on the roads. Its EV sales for April, year-on-year, showed its sales up 73% in the US, 25% in the UK, and an enormous 646% in China. About 5% of the 2 million units it sold globally last year were electric or hybrid. Richard Smith, partner at private equity
firm Sustainable Technology Investors, says BMW is certainly seen as “a leader right now” in terms of electrification.
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