An attempt to look at why we have so few EV

Where are all the EV?

The reasons for the lack of EV on the roads of the UK has been the subject of much speculation, mainly centred on the customer i.e. range anxiety, lack of infrastructure, cost etc. I would like to present, on behalf of the car makers, what I think are the actual reasons for the lack of EV.

Quite correctly, the UK government has been trying to create an environment to maximise adoption with some success as seen by the waiting lists for an EV (discussed later). The whole transition to EV falls nicely into the P.E.S.T.L.E model (Politics, Economics, Social, Technical, Legal and Environment). In this paper, I want to focus on the technical aspects only, as it is here that I believe there may be some overlap of questions between drivers, and senior decision makers in the boardrooms of the carmakers.

For the driver/customer the questions are mainly will I manage with the range, will the battery last, re-sale value etc. For the carmakers, similar decisions/questions are exist, but the scale is a lot bigger and the unknowns are making the decisions difficult. Governments and shareholders also have large interest in the strength and survival of the industry, subsequently they are part of the decision-making.

 All boards of carmakers are facing a product transition the like of which they, as individuals, and an industry may not see again. Board members are required to select the correct replacement for the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and importantly when to make the change. The costs involved are huge and the technical decisions likewise plus the associate reputational risks.

I am proposing that it is the battery, which is causing the angst and debate in boardrooms. This debate is I suggest around four questions:

1. Which chemistry/structure
2. Make or buy
3. What will be the average capacity for a family car (kWh)
4. When to go

Each question requires good intelligence and I would suggest that once (1) has been decided, the rest will form an introduction plan.

Current situation

The arrival of the Nissan Leaf with its quite limited 24kWh battery set in place a new and as yet not normalised paradigm in personal mobility. This was a very bold move by Nissan whilst the vehicle whilst clearly a family car had restricted range and the UK had only basic public infrastructure. I personally owned on and in 3 years never bettered 90 miles on an outing. Sales were slow with only a portion of the annual available capacity utilised. I is reasonable to suggest that it was not a sales success, but it did not fail and in doing so changed perceptions, and started a movement with Renault and Tesla towards a solution, which seems set to dominate for the near future.

The problem

We do not have serious production volumes so why not? When will all carmakers produce serious volumes? This lack of decision-making or transparency is causing major problems for legislators and supporting business such as recharging infrastructure providers. Business are trying to create their own strategies from press announcements, soundbites and 3rd party predictions, the latter being the most optimistic.

So what is holding up decisions?

I will try to answer this by entering the world of the car decision makers and examining current/recent behaviour. I will present three groupings to try to contextualise where the car companies are now. I will call them ‘Jumpers’, ‘on the fence’ and ‘looking at the fence’.

Jumpers: These companies recognised that the Li ion battery technology was probably a stopgap and with its limitations it could still do a job for many people. This decision came with considerable cost and risk to the few who ‘jumped’ and entered the market some 7 years ago. Once the decision had been made of what was the benefit of ‘Jumping’? The companies, which went first, became the current market and brand leaders. The companies also obtained an enormous amount of learning and tacit knowledge about the product from the user and the car itself. The danger was failure and the current danger is that a new technology could still take away the gains.

On the fence- These companies believed they needed to something whilst not really committing in the short term. Some vehicles were released but in small numbers; the noise in the media suggests a lot more than the reality.

Looking at the fence- These companies either promote an alternative technology or concept cars, but no actual vehicles.

Summary so far

The ‘Jumpers’ have a clear market lead and have upgraded the current models, but have not expanded their range of models. Their latest models are selling out with waiting lists. In Europe and Asia the make or buy seems to have moved to buy. The ‘on the fence’ are going to have to move soon as the pressure is growing in their own countries through legislation and customers turn away, due to lack of supply. The remaining companies (looking at the fence), I would suggest cannot progress to ‘sitting on the fence’ but will have to jump very soon.

What is causing all the angst? I believe it is the battery, which to some will not be a surprise. My observations are that current battery/chemistry has gone through some improvement. The current way to increase battery capacity is to squeeze more cells into the same envelope. The problem with Li ion is that without the obvious winning features of no vehicle emissions and running costs they are inferior to the incumbent (ICE). Even so people are buying up the current capacity which within the EU is circa 150,000 vs current ICE sales of 15m. Without more manufacturing capacity, sales will plateau very soon. EU sales of BEV in 2017 was 133,000 so we will soon be relying on imports.

What are the car companies waiting for?

The simple answer is a battery, which performs as well as ICE or very close to it, i.e. 5 min fill time and 300 mile range for a family car. Li ion cannot deliver on this so what can? The bets are on Solid State batteries. The problem is when are they available and at what price. When available is means productions lines producing thousands and not a laboratory run.

The whole of the car industry has an interesting decision to make; do we go with Li ion or do we wait for the Holy Grail (Solid State). Until the real problem of what replaced the current battery technology is solved, we will continue to have a shortage of vehicles. This means targets set by governments and forecasters predictions will be meaningless. Current cell capacity installations in Europe are real but 1m 40kWh cars need a 40GWh plant, which is 20 times the size of the current Nissan plant and 1/15th of the requirement for all of Europe.

Dr Colin Herron CBE: 20/8/2018