Electric vehicles make up only a small percentage of the global fleet of cars, but perhaps not for much longer. In some countries sales of EVs are soaring and overtaking sales of traditional cars. It’s no longer hard to imagine that the next generation will view the internal combustion engine in much the same way as we view the horse and cart – a relic of times past.
The Nordic countries are racing ahead when it comes to electric transformation. For instance, of all the cars sold in Norway this year, almost half were electric.
By June 2018, 47% of all new cars sold were either plug-in hybrid or battery powered electric vehicles.
Tesla Model S Taxi in Norway (Image: J. Tisdall)
According to the Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics, sales of electric vehicles in fact reached a tipping point in 2014. That year, total vehicle ownership increased, but sales of combustion engine vehicles declined. Electric vehicle sales made up the balance.
Generous incentives
Since the 1990s, Norway has had a very generous incentive system to encourage the proliferation of electric cars.
Drivers benefit from free parking and free charging in public places and no annual road tax.
Road toll charges are waived and electric cars are allowed to use bus lanes.
Norway also has the world’s largest fast-charging station, capable of charging up to 28 vehicles at a time in around half an hour.
Oslo is known as the EV capital of the world because of its high proportion of electric vehicles.
On a recent afternoon at a bus stop in the business district of Nanshan in Shenzhen, China, the air was filled with the sound of chirping birds in a nearby park. The street was quiet, with the exception of the occasional diesel truck chugging past—holdouts against a future that glided in with barely a sound: an electric bus.
A woman who’d been browsing on her smartphone while she waited hadn’t noticed the bus creeping up to the stop. Not until the doors opened with a beep, beep, beep and a man barking boisterously into his phone stepped out did she spring into action and hop aboard. Passengers scanned in with their smartphones, paying through WeChat, the app developed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., the Chinese social media giant whose flashy 50-story headquarters could be seen from the bus stop.
Every megacity can trace its history in increments of rising decibels. For most of them, the turning point was the Industrial Revolution. But in Shenzhen—now packed with more than 20 million people and hundreds of factories turning out high-tech hardware—the quiet age is only four decades in the past. Back then, China’s answer to Silicon Valley was still a collection of calm fishing villages just across the river from bustling Hong Kong.
A BYD E6 electric car at Cobham Services (Image: T. Larkum)
But in 1980, Deng Xiaoping declared Shenzhen to be China’s first special economic zone. The unending wail of urban sound descended almost at once: cars, highways, delivery trucks, sirens, buses, factories, power plants, shipping facilities, trains, and innumerable motorbikes. The newborn metropolis swiftly took its place among its global peers in making a never-ending racket.
The master plan created 14 local industrial clusters, distributing the risk of the government’s experiment. The first factory workers relied on about 300 fishing and farming villages for basics such as potable water and food. The result is that modern Shenzhen is multicentered, with clusters of walkable space, according to Juan Du, an architecture professor at the University of Hong Kong who studied the urban transformation. The city experimented with infrastructure: highways, bus corridors, and a subway that now has one-third the number of stops as New York’s (at one-tenth the age). Bullet trains, ferries, and a new airport connect it to the world.
Because of how the city developed, with skyscrapers filling in the spaces between rural farm communities, about half the city’s residents are urban villagers, who don’t necessarily require their own cars. The new Shenzhen has a mix of electric buses, electric bikes and scooters, electric taxis, and even electric dump trucks. Although the city arrived late to urban noise, the shift to EVs that China has been pushing more than any other country has put Shenzhen at the leading edge of something unprecedented: the quieter city.
If Shenzhen is at the forefront of metropolis-scale replacement of the combustion engine, then BYD Co. is the new Ford of China’s electrified-motor city. The electric-vehicle maker, backed by big Chinese subsidies and a $232 million investment from Warren Buffett in 2008, has eclipsed Tesla Inc. as the leading maker of plug-in EVs. BYD almost singlehandedly electrified Shenzhen’s fleet of 16,000 buses and is now at work on the full-scale replacement of the city’s taxis and trucks.
At the company’s Shenzhen headquarters, more than 37,000 employees make parts for electric cars, buses, and taxis. Most will be sold in China as part of the government’s master plan to become the world’s industrial powerhouse of what Beijing calls “new energy vehicles.”
Drivers considering plug-in hybrid vehicles with a gasoline backup are most interested in economic benefits while those gravitating toward battery-electric vehicles have stronger environmental concerns, according to a study led by a University of Kansas transportation policy scholar.
The research has identified distinct profiles of people considering newer electric vehicle technologies showing the two types of vehicles—one that offers gasoline as a safety net and another that relies solely on battery charging—are very different in the eyes of consumers.
A classic Tesla grin (Image: T. Larkum)
“Our findings inform the misconception and show that electric vehicles are not a homogeneous entity,” said the study’s lead author Bradley Lane, associate professor in the KU School of Public Affairs & Administration. “There are distinctive profiles of potential users for whom a plug-in hybrid is attractive and another for whom a battery electric is attractive. And these are two very distinct groups, similar to how there is a group of users who are attracted to a sport-utility vehicle and a separate group attracted to an economy car. We have shed more light on what factors influence how people make these decisions.”
The journal Transportation Research Part D recently published the group’s findings. Lane’s co-authors are Jerome Dumortier of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; Sanya Carley and John Graham, both of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University; Saba Siddiki of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and Kyle Clark-Sutton of RTI International of Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.
The findings could be important as automakers seek to market more electric vehicles and for national, state and local policymakers as they consider changes and any potential incentives for the production and use of the different types of electric vehicles. Much of the recent incentives date back to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that Congress passed in the Obama administration’s early days.
“After about 10 years into significant policy and investment, there are still a lot of unknowns about these vehicles from the viewpoints of the consumers,” he said.
But the advancement of electric vehicle technologies still represents one of the most notable developments of surface transportation in recent decades. With much of the petroleum-based resources being finite and located in politically unstable regions, there likely will continue to be a push for alternative fuels for internal combustion engines, Lane said.
Adding the next million electric vehicles will take just over six months, according to Bloomberg NEF.
Buckle up. Electric vehicle sales are shifting into high gear.
Cumulative passenger EV sales worldwide are set to hit 4 million this week, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The next million EV mark could be reached slightly later if Tesla Model 3 sales slow down, the firm noted. But even then, the milestone would still be well within sight.
Including electric buses, the 4 million threshold has already been reached. At the end of June, there were more than 3.5 million passenger EVs sold globally and about 421,000 electric buses, bringing the total number of EVs sold to 3.97 million.
Sales were driven in large part by China, which is responsible for around 37 percent of passenger EVs sold around the world since 2011 and around 99 percent of e-buses.
EV sales are accelerating, Bloomberg NEF figures show. It took 17 months to go from the first million to the second million EV sales milestone, and just six months to go from the third million to the fourth million milestone.
Bloomberg NEF projects it will take just over six months to sell the next million EVs, reaching the 5 million milestone in March 2019.
The Felix Project takes delivery of seven all-electric Renault Kangoo Z.E. panel vans
Donation of vehicles strengthens the partnership between Renault UK and the London-based food charity
New Renaults will allow the Felix Project to grow its collection and distribution operation significantly
The Felix Project’s central London operation fleet will now be 100 per cent electric
Zero tailpipe emissions, ease-of-use and size make the Kangoo Z.E ideal for the charity’s London routes
Renault Kangoo Z.E. is priced from £14,799, excluding VAT, after the Plug-in Van Grant
Renault UK is growing its support of the London-based Felix Project with the donation of a further seven all-electric Renault Kangoo Z.E. panel vans. This will allow the charity to expand its operation to provide the capital’s most disadvantaged inhabitants with fresh food.
The development strengthens the partnership between the manufacturer and The Felix Project, which was established in November 2017 with the initial donation of a single Kangoo Z.E.
One of Felix Project’s Kangoo ZE electric vans (Imaged: Renault)
The additional vans will grow the charity’s fleet by more than 50%, enabling it to significantly increase the 20 tonnes of food they currently deliver each week. This is food which is fresh yet cannot be sold for a number of reasons, that they collect from supermarkets, wholesalers and other suppliers, and distribute free of charge to around 200 charities and schools throughout London. In turn, these organisations then provide meals, snacks or food parcels to those in need, including elderly or homeless people, struggling families, those with mental health issues, refugees and asylum seekers.
All of the vans will initially be based at the Felix Project’s central London operation. Vehicles that are already in-use in the depot will be allocated to the charity’s other sites with the result that the central operation’s distribution and collection service will be 100 per cent electric.
The constant stop/start for collections and drops, average journey lengths and the demanding nature of driving in the capital mean that the Kangoo Z.E. is the perfect vehicle for the Felix Project. Immensely easy to drive with users not having to worry about gear changes and enjoying instant response from the advanced drivetrain, the van is ideal for negotiating the city’s traffic, while also returning a significant saving on fuel costs and being exempt from the London Congestion Charge.
The ease-of-use is especially important to The Felix Project as the latest vans will not be assigned to one driver, but used by a variety of volunteers on evening runs into the capital. The Kangoo Z.E.’s payload of 640kg – near identical to that of its diesel counterpart – also makes it exceedingly versatile, the Felix Project’s existing Kangoo Z.E. is able to accommodate 32 crates of food, which is enough to deliver to four primary schools.
The Felix Project was established in early 2016 in memory of Felix Byam Shaw – the son of one of the charity’s founders – who died suddenly from meningitis in 2014. The idea for the charity was born out of Felix’s compassion for fellow youngsters who didn’t have his advantages and, in particular, after he played in a football match and discovered that some of the opposing team of 10-year-old boys from South London hadn’t had anything to eat that day.
Anne Elkins, Development Manager for The Felix Project’s school programme, said
“The new Kangoo Z.E.s will make a big difference to our operation, allowing us to plan more routes and also collect more donations that are made available on an ad hoc basis and which need to be collected in a short time frame. It’s great to have the extra capacity and the support from Renault.
“Our original Kangoo Z.E is a big hit with our drivers due to its manoeuvrability and being so easy to drive. The van really is a great fit for us as it does everything we need and adds another carbon efficient element to our operation’s ethos on protecting the environment by cutting down food waste and ensuring that good, nutritious food isn’t thrown away.”
Vincent Tourette, Managing Director, Groupe Renault UK, said:
“We’re exceptionally pleased to extend our support of The Felix Project. The charity is passionate in what it does and it’s a privilege for us to play a part in helping them to grow their operation and ultimately supply food to those in the capital who are in the most need. With its latest Kangoo Z.E. the Felix Project can extend their reach but also invest the majority of their current fuel and congestion charge costs back into other areas of the business.”
The Kangoo Z.E.33 has a real-world range of 124 miles and has a load capacity of up to 4.6m³, coupled with diesel-rivalling payload of up to 640kg. Together with the enhanced 33kWh battery, the Kangoo Van Z.E.33 benefits from an upgraded charger that reduces charging times and is twice as powerful as its previous one. The single-phase 7kW AC charger can take the new 33kWh battery to a full charge in just six hours, with the ability to ‘top-up’ the vehicle by up to 21 miles in just one hour. The Renault Kangoo Van Z.E.33 is available in a range of body styles, including Kangoo Van Z.E.33, Kangoo Maxi Z.E.33, Kangoo Maxi Crew Van Z.E.33 and Kangoo Maxi Crew Van Cab Z.E.33.
Automaker executives from Ford, GM, Nissan, and Toyota are fond of saying that not very many consumers want electric cars. They sometimes claim they could produce many more electric cars, but customers are not asking for them. (The execs somehow ignore the hundreds of thousands of orders Tesla has pulled in for the Model 3.)
Aside from giving me wicked cognitive dissonance via the completely incorrect claim that consumers don’t want electric cars, the insidious thing is that these automakers have hardly used traditional means of drumming up demand — aka advertising — to try to persuade buyers to want their electric cars.
ULEVs across a range of segments (Image: OLEV)
Automakers have huge advertising budgets. Last I heard, the industry spends more money on advertising than any other industry in the US or worldwide. The automakers push SUVs and pickup trucks on you incessantly. They want to convince you to buy non-electric gas guzzlers. Yet, a new study from the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) (NESCAUM) indicates that “six major automakers in the U.S. (General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen, and FiatChrysler) are spending almost nothing to advertise their electric vehicles,” as the Sierra Club summarizes it.
Normally, I wouldn’t say the automakers are trying to not sell electric cars. I’d just say that they aren’t trying very hard to sell the EVs. However, when you look at EV advertising compared to non-EV advertising from these firms, it becomes more visually obvious — the companies are trying hard to sell gasmobiles while not encouraging people to buy their electric cars. That essentially means they are trying to not sell electric cars.
Furthermore, it’s clear that it’s not just one company that’s lagging. Across the board, traditional automakers spend almost nothing to shape the values and product interests of consumers in a positive way.
People keep calling this car a ‘game changer’. It’s almost like some unspoken law, especially on Twitter. If you’re a car journalist and you’ve driven one, you have to tweet about it using the words ‘game changer’. I find this a bit strange. I mean, what game is it changing? Is it darts? Is it snooker? Can you move the balls with your hands now? Or is it, to be more accurate, the ‘game’ of ‘Jaguar selling electric cars’ in which case, yes, this is a game changer. It is also, if you want to stretch this to twanging length, the ball because before this car there was no game on account of there being nothing to play it with. So, erm… yea.
Like many cars, the I-Pace seems to be spec sensitive. There are some really attractive wheel options, up to a hearty 22 inches too, and a particularly nice blue paint, though it also seems to look good in dark grey and white. Unfortunately, this press car is in a different sort of grey, one that looks a bit flat and drab, like that colour you used to get on sporty Clios, and which in some lights appears British Leyland beige. It wouldn’t be my choice, especially not paired with the optional all-black alloys. I don’t like all-black alloys on a car. They’re like the all-black off-brand trainers worn by that weird kid at school who smelt a bit of TCP and once threw a rucksack at the maths teacher. There’s more spec madness inside this press demo where it teams stridently red leather with dark wood trimmings. Having played with the I-Pace configurator I know you can spec one up in a much nicer way, one that it doesn’t look like a car the factory cobbled together to use up whatever was left over, like the mad food you make the night before you go on holiday. Mmm, cheesy lamb chop with yoghurt.
Jaguar I-PACE at Fully Charged Live show (Image: T. Larkum)
Aside from the colour/trim choices, there’s something else disturbing about this I-Pace and it’s a sort of strange gravelly noise. Normally electric cars are very quiet but there’s definitely an odd sound in the background. After a few minutes I realise it’s the sound synth which is meant to deputise for the missing internal combustion engine noise. A rummage through the touch screen menus finds the slider that controls it, and which is currently set to ‘dynamic’. There’s an un-named middle setting, and then ‘calm’ which is what I choose, immediately making the gravelly sound go away. I can see why they’ve done this, to bat away those people who say they don’t like electric cars because of the lack of engine sound, but I love electric cars because they’re so smooth and quiet and with the synth disabled the I-Pace is about as smooth and quiet as they come. Unless you’re reversing, then it beeps like a bin lorry.
Day two
Off to film a Smith & Sniff episode with this car (coming soon guys, don’t forget to like and subscribe!!11!!! etc). The first thing this involves is getting out of London. At some lights on a dual carriageway I come up behind a bloke in a Huracan Spyder. When the lights turn green he makes an energetic getaway and I take a small slice of delight in hanging on to his arse until the next set of lights. I’m sure if he’d really clogged it he could have got away, but the I-Pace wouldn’t have made it easy for him. It’s a plenty brisk car. The next part of my journey is a short trip up the A1 during which the I-Pace proves itself to be an excellent motorway cruiser. In a way a bit too excellent because it feels like it’s straining at the lead and will happily sit at a speed that is more than the speed limit causing the range-o-meter to drop at more than a mile per mile, wasting precious electricity. In the end, I stick the cruise control on to stop myself constantly going a little faster or becoming unable to resist the temptation to surge commandingly past some dickwit in a 320d. Instant access to a deep well of torque, 513 lb ft of it if you’re interested, is a wonderful thing.
Kia’s Niro PHEV is a plug-in hybrid for stealth environmentalists
The 2018 Kia Niro is a car for people who don’t really know what they want. We tested it with a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but Kia also offers a conventional hybrid, and will soon add an all-electric model to the lineup. The Niro’s tall body and low ride height blur the line between crossovers and hatchbacks. But in trying to fill every niche, has Kia created a car that doesn’t quite fit anywhere?
Kia Niro PHEV shown at Fully Charged Live (Image: T. Larkum)
To find out, we borrowed a 2018 Kia Niro PHEV EX Premium for a few days. This is the highest of three trim levels so in addition to standard features from the more basic LX and EX models, such as 16-inch alloy wheels, adaptive cruise control, and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto compatibility, our test car benefitted from leather upholstery, heated and ventilated front seats, a heated steering wheel, navigation, and an upgraded eight-speaker Harman Kardon audio system.
Our tester also wore the optional snow white pearl paint ($395) and came with carpeted floor mats ($135). The base Niro PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) LX starts at $27,900, but our EX Premium tester rang in at $35,970 with destination.
The Niro’s competitors include the Toyota Prius Prime, Chevrolet Volt and Kia sibling Hyundai’s Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid. Like the Niro, they’re dedicated green models that don’t have non-electrified counterparts. Since Kia considers the Niro to be a crossover, it’s conceivable that people might cross-shop it against the larger Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV as well.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week announced that the 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric is rated to provide 258 miles on a single charge.
That’s a huge deal. It’s important not because the Kona crossover displaces the Chevy Bolt as the leader in range among affordable electric cars. There are only 20 miles that separate the range of the Kona Electric and the Bolt—a difference that’s inconsequential for daily driving.
The Kona EV’s 258-mile official range is a big deal because it’s the new benchmark for all carmakers to meet when introducing an electric car. Chevy, Nissan, Toyota, and BMW are now all on notice to put up bigger range numbers.
Hyundai Kona Electric (Image: Hyundai)
Of course, the king of range remains the expensive Tesla Model S and Model X. Most EV fans expect a 300-ish range from vehicles that commonly sell for six figures (and have a Tesla badge). The major shift that’s underway is the availability of cars that sell closer to $40,000 and exceed 250 miles on a charge—a level that will likely grow to 300 miles or more in the next couple years.
The Tesla Model 3, which was supposed to be the breakthrough car for long-range affordability, has not been the model to deliver on that promise. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a fantastic electric vehicle. However, recent surveys indicate that the only Model 3 version available today—the 310-mile variant—has an average sales price of around $60,000. Again, we expect Tesla to produce outrageously cool long-range EVs.
The End of Long-Range Excuses
But what is cooler still, and more novel, is an out-of-nowhere, no-buzz Hyundai crossover that sets a new standard for affordable EV range—at a price that beats the Chevy Bolt. The Kona Electric’s price has not yet been announced, but Hyundai could really shake things up if it lands near $30,000.
The Kona will have the same zippy driving character of many other small EVs. Its 201-horsepower electric motor, driving the front wheels, matches the Chevy Bolt’s 200-hp motor—and beats the Nissan LEAF and BMW i3 with 147 and 170 horses respectively. All of them scoot from a standstill to 60 miles per hour in around seven seconds.
It is possible to unlock a 100 percent renewably powered grid — without any coal, nuclear or gas storage baseload — within the next several years.
And any driver or homeowner could contribute to the solution by using electric vehicles (EVs) as mobile batteries that charge at one location when there’s a surge of renewable energy and deliver it back to the grid at another when it’s needed.
The storage potential of EVs is striking. Aggregating energy across one million EVs amounts to 50 to 100 GWh of storage capacity, according to industry analysts Brattle Group. Putting that into perspective, Tesla’s “big battery” in South Australia, currently the largest battery in the world, stores less than 1GWh.
OVO Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) charging (Image: T. Larkum/Fuel Included)
With electric cars storing and transporting renewable power, we wouldn’t need to continue building expensive storage infrastructure. For utilities, this vast mobile power source could be a savior — or their downfall.
Batteries on wheels
EVs have more capacity than they need on a daily basis: The average daily car trip in the U.S. is about 30 miles, while most EVs have a range of 124 to 310 miles. Current base model vehicles with a 186.4-mile range on a 60 kW battery pack could run a typical house, including air conditioning, for four to five days. And despite some car owners’ concerns, discharging the battery won’t cause noticeable wear, because a typical battery’s life is longer than the lifetime of a vehicle.
Using vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, which allows vehicle batteries to store surplus energy from intermittent renewable resources like solar and wind, EV owners could power their homes with energy stored in car batteries or sell it back to utilities, balancing fluctuations in energy demand. Using real-time rates, utilities could encourage EV owners to charge up during the day, when there is excess (and therefore cheap) solar energy, and sell back to the grid during times of high demand.