All in due time

As early as 2015, Dutch roads will be engulfed with no less than 500,000 electric cars, at least according to Pier Vellinga, professor at Wageningen University and member of Dutch government-funded EnergyTransition. And we're not talking about hybrids.

In an interview earlier this month, we quoted Vellinga having bet his colleague Frits Hermans a bottle of very fine wine on this prediction. We asked Hermans and another peer for comment, and found they are of one mind.

Utopian
“This scenario is simply utopian”, says Fred Hagendoorn, of EnergyTransition's Sustainable Mobility Platform. Hagendoorn is chairman of the platform's hybridisation and electrification working group. “I won't go into the figures, but if we were to have Pier's 500,000 electric vehicles (EVs) by 2020 that would already be splendid.”

Chairman of the platform, Frits Hermans, agrees: “I sincerely hope Pier will win our bet, but I have my doubts.”

Battery charging
Hermans continues: “EV infrastructure, for instance, is not 'as good as ready'. For large-scale EV use we need 'smart grids'. For quick charging you need more than standard home power supply.” Does he expect much of the recent breakthrough in battery charging? “Enthusiasts are propelling hype: they paint optimistic pictures in order to be granted subsidies. I would do the same thing, but I can see right through their stories.”

Hagendoorn embroiders on grid requirements: “Full, six to eight-hour battery charging can be done at home. But if thousands of cars need a twenty-minute quick charge, that requires a current boost too heavy for our standard grid. It can be arranged, for instance with the railway network management, but that takes time and must be done carefully.”

Barriers
Both colleagues see many more infrastructural and other barriers that Vellinga takes rather lightly. Hagendoorn talks about hesitating manufacturers, producing fully electric cars only for the Californian market (where a certain percentage of cars must by law be zero-emission cars).

Battery price
Batteries will get cheaper, but “we won't see significantly lowered prices until 2020,” says Hagendoorn. “What is more,” Hermans adds, “world-wide battery demand is growing fast, but we still have to build the plants to produce enough batteries.

“Maybe small players can deliver batteries without much consideration for quality or price. But I say: let's listen to those with experience. Toyota, for instance, has been working with hybrids (HEVs) for some time now. They do need to consider these factors." Reliability and durability are prerequisite to sustained success of HEV, plug-in HEV and EVs.

Second life
“Second hand value is also of importance to the serious manufacturers,” says Hermans. His colleague subscribes to this last point. “A battery can be recharged two to three thousand times, that's it. So with an action radius of 100-250 kilometres, it will need to be replaced within the life span of the car, which lasts for about fifteen years.

“Commercially viable electric cars should be on the market by 2012. The current price of a complete battery pack is between eight and ten thousand euros. I expect that in 2020 that will have come down to five thousand, and to perhaps around two thousand in 2030. Although EVs have low maintenance costs, if in 2020 you buy an eight year old car, you don't want to replace the battery at five thousand euros...”

Testing ground
Whereas Vellinga has set his mind on the 'second car in the household' market, which means on consumers, Hermans and Hagendoorn consider the professional market of urban haulage (minivans, small trucks), service cars and – closest to the consumer – lease cars a necessary testing environment. EVs can prove themselves there, win consumer trust, and thus in time a natural demand can develop. Premature large-scale consumer market introduction could harm business, say both. Although Hermans assures us he wants to see Vellinga win the bet, he would advice against rushing things.

“People driving many kilometres per year would make suitable test drivers,” he says. “And it would make sense to concentrate the first vehicles, for infrastructural reasons and to have service mechanics nearby. So large urban concentrations would be perfect testing grounds. But these areas present us with specific problems: where do you place charging points, for instance: on parking spots that can otherwise bring in thirty of forty euros a day?”

Tax stimulation
According to Hagendoorn, government must now decide which developments to set in motion. Apart from testing grounds and a well-considered set of infrastructural arrangements, he sees the need for tax stimulation.

“An efficient gasoline engine car costs seven euro-cents per kilometre of fuel. An EV costs three cents per kilometre, but counting battery price, you will need to drive 160,000 kilometres to get breakeven.”

Viable
Is the EV case a viable business case then? “All in all, I see chances for a large-scale EV market, but the transition path is long and we've still got a lot to do,” says Hagendoorn. “When all conditions are met, we will still need to convince the market.”

Hermans: “If we count hybrids and serial hybrids, I give Vellinga a chance. I see a future for the biogas hybrid. Just as green current, people can already have biogas at home – I do. The cheap EV will come, but all in due time. Expensive conversions are not the answer.”

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