Electric Vehicle Market: Challenges and Opportunities
Audio Highlights

SBI Energy is proud to present a 5-minute audio segment on the opportunities and challenges facing the hybrid electric vehicle market as it applies to manufacturers in production of the vehicles and the infrastructure to support it.

Insights include:

• Sales and market forecast
• Key motivators
• EV infrastructure outlook - including smart grid development
• Battery technology

 View Electric Vehicle Market audio insights here          

Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Manufacturing | Table of Contents

Electric Vehicle (EV) and Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Markets Worldwide | Table of Contents

Hype Versus Reality for Plug-in Electric Vehicles

By SBI Energy Analyst Norman Dechampes

Judging by the hype, blogs, news articles, and razzle-dazzle behind the upcoming plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf pure battery electric vehicle (BEV), you would be hard pressed not to assume that the both company’s entire futures rest on these single models (well, that may be true for GM, which has seen harder times than most, but I digress).

To be fair that is GM’s and Nissan’s job; they are in the business of selling cars and they are trying to do just that.  However, constantly promising more than you can deliver (particular when also promising a reasonable price) leaves a sour taste in the consumer’s mouth; not just for that product but for the technology as a whole. Unfortunately, that is been the case more often than not with plug-in electric vehicles.

I am not saying that the lithium-ion battery technologies being used in these and other model PHEV and BEVs can’t deliver all the promises that EV manufacturers are making.  Far from it.  You only have to look at the specifications of the Tesla Roadster (0-60 mph in 3.7 seconds and a 200 mile range) to see how wrong that assumption is.  What I am saying is that current battery technology cannot give that performance at a price that the average consumer is willing to spend.

Advances in battery chemistry happen more slowly than advances in electronics; the lithium-ion chemistry has doubled its energy storage density in just under a decade. What this tells me is that the batteries that we need to make PHEV batteries relatively inexpensive are close to a decade away.  For EVs it is even longer.

Of course, PHEVs will be hitting the market much sooner than 2020.  There are always people who are willing to pay a premium for a specific product and will buy PHEVs even at a higher cost premium.  And it is not as though there will be an instant halving of cost of batteries in 2020; the price will decrease gradually, slowly bringing down the cost of PHEVs (and EVs) to comparable levels with gasoline engine vehicles.

But rather than trying to use excessive hype to sell what are going to be expensive vehicles (the Volt is expected to go for $40K and Nissan hasn’t even hinted how much the Leaf will be), these new electric vehicle offerings should take a page out of Tesla Motors playbook; be up front about exactly what the car can do and how much it will cost.  It seems to have worked for Tesla, which has sold over 1,000 roadsters and counting.

Because right now, Joe and Sally Sixpack consumer, who have been continually promised that plug-in electric vehicles will solve all of the world’s oil and transportation problems, are going to be hesitant to pay the price premium of plug-in electric vehicles when they do become available.  They have been fooled once too many times already.

Electric Vehicle (EV) and Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Markets Worldwide          

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