Trend Tracker’s latest report - Electric Vehicles: Energy, Infrastructure and the Mobility Market in the Real World - suggests that this year’s ‘Dawn of the Age of Electric Motoring’ heralded by the launch of the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi iMiEV may prove a false dawn.

The global car population is expected to more than double to over two billion as China and other BRIC countries become motorised, but the proportion for which electric cars will account is much less clear.

The 242-page report suggests that moving from oil to electricity could represent one of the greatest challenges humanity will have ever faced. Yet little thinking to date makes sense of the enormous challenges ahead if electric vehicles (“EVs”) are to fulfil their promise and break out of a tiny niche of high-income suburban commuters with home charging facilities.

Challenges discussed in this report include:

  • To compete with petrol/diesel engines, EV traction batteries have to be much more than twice as energy dense as lithium ion ever will be, at least three times cheaper, and last much longer before replacement
  • For EVs to take off, conventional cars have to become less and less attractive – but in fact they’re still getting better, cheaper to buy, and cheaper to run, thanks to the same emissions legislation that seeks to privilege EVs.
  • Massive petroleum tax revenues need to be replaced if mobility goes electric – but how?
  • Costly EVs require heavy subsidies to attract even affluent early adopters – typically, governments are offering €5,000 or more to second-car buyers, installing free charging points at upwards of €10,000/unit, providing free power, and slashing ownership taxes. Will governments have to turn off the tap before such subsidies have created sustained market momentum?
  • Smart grids and more storage will be essential to managing more intermittent renewable energy supply and extra power demand from EVs. Can EVs truly contribute to grid balancing?
  • With radically reduced parts consumption and probable high depreciation, EVs represent a strategic threat to the standard automotive industry business model. Meanwhile, alternative new powertrain technologies are fragmenting vehicle production and markets.

The report’s lead author, Toby Procter, says these challenges must be met, or, given the longevity of cars, the swelling global car population will remain oil-dependent after oil has become too scarce and/or too expensive to fuel it. Arguably we need to electrify transport, or mobility at the end of the ‘Oil Age’ will be so severely compromised that whole economies will collapse.