The Obama administration’s latest EV rallying cry is said to be more about setting a positive mood than any likelihood of reaching his bold targets. It is a commendable goal but one that might only be achieved with the help of a magic wand, writes EV Updates Sam Phipps.
That’s the consensus on the EV-Everywhere Challenge recently announced by the US president when he invited scientists, engineers and young people to make electric vehicles “more affordable and convenient to own than today’s gasoline-powered vehicles” within the next decade.
However, like his ambitious target of one million EVs on US roads by 2015, declared a few years ago, the EV-Everywhere Challenge should help focus innovators’ minds in a sector that has seen both setbacks and advances lately.
The idea is to bring industry and government together so that technological gains can improve performance and cut costs, particularly when it comes to the key issue of batteries, but also motors, power electronics, lightweight structures and fast charging infrastructure.
This, the logic goes, could create the tipping point that finally makes EVs part of the mainstream, i.e. affordable to “the average American family”, according to the US State Department’s stated aims.
It is part of a wider strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions and protect US consumers from high oil and gas prices, also reducing dependence on foreign oil.
So how does the EV-Everywhere Challenge stack up?
“If the objective is to try and get everybody to drive an electric car tomorrow, well, hello, we can’t achieve that,” said Brian Wynne, president of the electric drive transportation association (EDTA), the trade organisation in the US.
“We need to look at the context in which the President is speaking. It’s aspirational. We want to electrify transportation over time. That’s a long-term objective, the game is to accelerate it.
“Facilitating greater collaboration between government and industry is absolutely required, and that’s exactly what this EV-Everywhere Challenge is about.”
Obama’s vision includes a battery that costs half the price of today’s units and has a range of 300 miles on one charge. If the second part of that goal is still a dream, the first has perhaps come a big step closer with a battery developed by Envia Systems.
In February Envia, whose investors include General Motors, said its batteries were tested at 400 watt-hours per kilogramme at a projected cost of $125 per kilowatt hour – far more energy dense than most batteries and less than half what car makers are paying today, according to the company.
Envia uses a new manganese based cathode, with a mix of metals produced in such a way to create surface properties for better capacity and long life.
Brake on demand
Andrew Jackson, car analyst at Datamonitor in London, said this could be a significant breakthrough in the next three to five years but even so, its likely effect on the market as a whole was uncertain, partly because of GM’s role.
“The key caveat is that GM has funded the work so you can bet that they’re going to have some form of exclusivity rights. Obviously if they can sell at a tangibly lower price than their competitors they can corner the market and that’s going to inhibit overall growth in the sector.”
Either way, the high purchase price of EVs is likely to continue to limit demand in the near to medium term, according to analysts, who repeatedly cite cost above range anxiety as the main deterrent to consumers.
Lux Research forecasts fewer than 200,000 EVs on roads in the States by 2015.
The Chevy Volt starts at about $39,000, the Nissan Leaf $35,000 and Ford’s Focus Electric just under $40,000. A full $7500 tax credit is available per car, which Obama wants to raise to $10,000, but with US presidential elections due in November this year it is unsure how long even the current boost will continue.
Generational factor
A run of bad news preceded the Envia announcement, namely, weak sales of the Volt, investigation of the same model for possible battery fires, though federal investigators concluded the car posed no bigger risk of fire than petrol or diesel cars and financial problems at several EV related start-ups.
As for charging infrastructure, Jackson said utilities were often waiting to see what vehicle manufacturers are planning to do, and vice versa.
“Pure plug-in EVs are always going to be limited in low density population areas, unless the likes of EDF and E.ON can see some form of commercial relevance.”
However, EVs will become increasingly acceptable over time, he argues.
“It’s essentially a generational issue. Consumers have grown up with the internal combustion engine so there’s an addiction if you will, or at least better the devil you know. I would imagine that people growing up now would be far more compliant about buying an EV when they are old enough to afford it, if they can afford it.”
Likewise, Wynne of the EDTA talks of the pleasant surprise drivers get when they first sit at the wheel of an electric car. “We call it the EV smile. It’s almost infectious and very predictable. The more people we get in there, the more it will take off.”
