This changes EVerything!

Ownership dictates compromise - especially, and tragically - in personal transportation.

An EV is either limited in range (for some of the time), or too expensive - and with a big badass battery that will snooze as you lose. 200+ mile range seems to be the sweet spot...but is it really?

A PHEV offers flexibility - on range but not on price. It's either the best or worst of both worlds - depending on what you do with it.

Both of the above, and a number of other variations on the theme, are all jostling for favour and seeking to usurp the well established, commercially monumental, and much loved internal combustion engine.

The ICE has more Connections, Likes, and Followers than all the newbies put together and multiplied many millions of times over!

But they all have a fundamental flaw...

They all have degrees of compromise to the user/owner.

In living with one vehicle, we only occasionally get to enjoy a 'goldilocks' moment.

Now I'm certainly not suggesting anything original in that observation - but, in trying to qualify the prospective market adoption rate of EV's...

I think this is fundamentally what much of it will pivot on. A data-driven proposition that relates mostly to 'need' over and above 'want'. That might worry the marketing boys and girls if it truly came to fruition of course.

To my mind - predicting EV adoption rates has become a minefield of wild and dangerous speculation...step on the wrong one as a manufacturer or supplier and everything could be over in a flash!

Some of the numbers are based on data and reasonable methodology, some are idle and clumsy bumblings - worse still, many are peppered with politics and propaganda.

Over and above technical developments in and around batteries, electronics, software, infrastructure etc - it could be that the mix of Mobility as a Service over Ownership will be the dominant metric, and if 'MaaS' truly becomes mainstream - the usage patterns and data that delivers will clearly illustrate what 'configuration' works best.

The mapping of journeys and matching supply to that demand is the essence of 21st Century business propositions like Uber, Didi Chuxing, Lyft - and many others. Unlike the binary (no pun intended) traditional market approach of simply encouraging unit demand by new product iteration, marketing, and finance incentives - and then gearing up factories and supply chains to deliver on that, the more intelligent approach could be to build the vehicles fit for the journeys that most people make. Minimise or eradicate product compromise so that we truly build specific vehicles for specific purposes/duty cycles.

This will radically remove the compromise component we have all been 'unwittingly' living with. It will also hugely diminish the industry of fanciful forecasting - either in over or under-calling the future role of electric vehicles in all our lives.

The right vehicle for the right journey for the right person each and every time.

So...what mix will that give us for EV's in say 2025?

I say, give me data! - and I might just be able to tell you!

For Connected...

For Autonomous...

For Shared...

For Electric...

Like a few others - I'm on the CASE!

Roger @ www.electricvehiclesoutlook.com