Electric vehicles soon to boom

Various large Dutch newspapers like NRC and news websites such as nu.nl, went with the big-number story last week: in the second half of this century ninety per cent of all vehicle kilometres could be driven in electric vehicles (EVs). This would lead to an eighty to ninety per cent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in the long run. Such is the prediction made by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). If mopeds and scooters go electric as well, we will practically be able to hear the birds tweeting in the city morning sky again. And all this without paying more for our mobility than in a fossil fuel scenario.

The PBL is aware of certain conditions to be met first: lower battery prices, an increase of the action radius of EVs and quicker and more wide-spread charging possibilities.

Car sales
What is more, Dutch news broadcasts this week brought tidings of car sales in February having plummeted with nearly a third compared to those in the same month of last year. Only green car sales figures remained unaltered, an argument that seems to support the EV optimism of Professor Pier Vellinga of Wageningen University, where research focuses on life sciences and natural resources.

Fastest road
Apparently the PBL forecast was interpreted as rather negative. “I spoke to someone at PBL,” Vellinga says, “and they were surprised about this interpretation. The report meant to underline the potential velocity of increasing EV use.” Vellinga expects EV use to grow even faster than the PBL deems possible. “I've betted a fellow sustainable mobility professional that there will be 500,000 electric cars on the Dutch roads by the end of 2015. That would amount to about one in six cars,” he says.

What is needed for Vellinga to win his bottle of fine wine? Infrastructure isn't really the problem. Vellinga: “The basic infrastructure is already in place, as opposed to, say, a biogas infrastructure. Within a year enough sockets could be placed and that wouldn't cost much. Power cords could be sold directly to consumers and Bob's your uncle. Also, parking lots could be equipped with charging facilities.”

But there are more reasons EV sales could take off quickly. “Compared to oil or gas, electricity is cheap. And clean electricity can be easily won: from waste, wind, biomass – all abundantly available. So electricity is by far the fastest road to sustainable mobility,” Vellinga explains. “And as CO2 levies will, without a doubt, rise, electricity's advantages compared to various kinds of fuel will only increase.”

Early adopters
Vellinga expects lease companies and companies using small urban trucks (up to seven tonnes) to be amongst the first to embrace EVs on a large scale. “In the UK this is already a trend and courier company TNT, for instance, has an interesting business case using EV trucks.”

And what about private cars? If it is so easy to carry out, why aren't we driving electric cars on a massive scale yet? Has EVs' bad record when it comes to action radius something to do with that? “Modern EVs have an action radius of about 180 kilometres. That may be a problem to some car owners, but I see a bright future for electric city cars and 'second cars',” says Vellinga.

Hybrids
PBL considers hybrid EVs a better option. They can go fifty kilometres on electricity and then switch to conventional fuel. According to the report, large-scale use of hybrids could already cut CO2 emissions by fifty per cent.

Vellinga: “Hybrids can certainly be the first step towards a future of all-electric vehicles. But the switching mechanism is expensive. So when battery prices will come down from the current eight to a mere five-thousand euros, which I expect they will within two to three years, plug-ins will become the cheaper option. The Chinese are working on this.”

Oil companies
Will oil companies be able to turn the electric tide? “They would certainly want to!” Vellinga replies. “Large-scale EV use would be detrimental to Exon, Shell and BP. I'm curious to see how oil companies will react, but they do not have a grip on the automobile sector. In Europe the car industry has never been as interwoven with the oil industry as it used to be in the United States.

Business case
“What is more: when building EVs, car companies do not have to be the size of Volkswagen or Renault. If you can sell a few thousand EVs a year, you already have a business case for assembly. So we could even have a new car industry in the Netherlands.”

Vellinga names an interesting initiative to back this up. DuraCar has built a Dutch EV, the QUICC!, following the cradle-to-cradle principles. Vellinga himself is associated with the Norwegian Think car, through the Urgenda foundation, which supports publicity and sales of the Think in the Netherlands.

Field experts
Further on in our series we hope to hear from field experts like TNT, QUICC! and Think about their experiences and their expectations for EVs in the nearby future. Do they think Vellinga will win his bet?

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