tl;dr It's happening! Gas guzzlers will soon cost more to purchase than battery electrics worldwide, and the death spiral will pick up ever more speed. (They already cost more to own.) Plans for hundreds of EV models have been announced. Cars, scooters, motorcycles, pickups, panel trucks, buses, 18-wheelers, locomotives…
We can't do them all today. This is primarily about cars. There will be enough Fridays for the others.
Plummeting battery prices to make electric cars cheaper than gas cars in 3 years
EVs are already superior to gasoline cars in many key respects: they have faster acceleration, much lower maintenance costs, zero tail-pipe emissions, and a much lower per-mile fueling cost than petrol cars , even when running on carbon-free fuel.
Electric cars may already be making gas cars as obsolete as ‘flip phones’, experts say
Bullard explains in a Bloomberg article that this crossover will start in 2022 for large vehicles in Europe, but quickly spread to smaller vehicles and other parts of the world as battery prices continue to plummet.
Based on BNEF's previous predictions, all of which were too conservative, I say 2021. (I am not the only one saying that BNEF is behind the curve.) But let's look at real products and real numbers and real development.
And real Denialists, as usual. We must take note of dying electric car denialism. Here I have a piece of notably good news from the Cato Institute, once the Koch Institute.
War on Science: CATO folds its fossil-fuel funded anti-science science center
Dr. Patrick Michaels, Cato's lead Global Warming Denialist for the last 30 years, is out of a job, along with his minions. And here is a Cato search page for "electric car"—3800 pages of never happen, can't happen, shouldn't happen lies. Will Cato keep them or disappear them, never to be seen again except at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine?
About Those Electric Cars ….
In a post yesterday, I scored U.S. News & World Report’s Marianne Lavelle for (among other things) passing on an estimate from an advocacy group called “CalCars” that “with today’s electricity prices, drivers would be paying the equivalent of 75 cents per gallon.” In fact, it would cost you almost $3.50 to get the same amount of BTUs from electricity that you get from gasoline in this country (assuming, of course, you are paying the national average price for electricity). This morning, The Daily Kos takes me to task for not going further and taking into consideration the greater efficiency with which electric motors convert BTUs to energy vis a vis internal combustion engines powered by gasoline.
Go us!
The truth means that ICE cars will soon have nearly $0 resale value, except to some who live far off-road, and to dead-enders who put ideology over Real MoneyTM. It is possible that some of the more economically benighted countries will import used gasoline cars for a few years until the forces of Real MoneyTM require them to build out their own grids and networks of renewables.
But even safari cars out in the veldt in Africa are going electric. Silent drive is wonderful for getting close to big and sometimes skittish animals.
Electric Safari Vehicles
Electric Safari Pty Ltd specialises in converting normally aspirated vehicles into fully electric vehicles. The technology we currently use is the best in the world for this application with motors that have a 95% efficiency rate that are dust proof and waterproof.
Our aim in the future is to convert all vehicles in environmentally sensitive areas to becoming more environmentally friendly as we provide a solution to be off the grid and non-reliant on fossil fuels.
Let's go back to the top now, and look at the critical numbers I promised.
Indeed, [Bullard] notes that as recently as 2015, batteries were 57% of the cost of a U.S. medium-sized car. Today that is down to 33%, and by 2025, batteries will be a mere 20% of total EV cost (see chart).
As battery performance and price improve, EVs are getting longer and longer ranges — some as much as 500 miles — and the charging time is dropping rapidly. Already, superfast chargers can charge an EV in as little as 20 minutes, and new chargers can cut that time in half. Next-generation batteries may be chargeable in three to five minutes.
Look at all of the Denialist lies that are falling down here! Not for the first time. No wonder Cato gave up.
The Mythology
Oh, but as we all know, electric cars will never be practical because Reasons.
10 Common Electric Car Myths Busted
Yes, we know about you lot.
Plato (ca. 428 BCE–347 BCE)
The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him (or her) do anything at all on his (or her) own initiative–to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals...only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it.
Plato, Laws 942d (350 BCE)
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814)
You must fashion [the person], and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.
Addresses to the German Nation
Sorry, fellas, millions of the children of the Authoritarian Denialist Deplorables fall away every year, because they cannot be raised in such bubbles any more. See The End of White Christian America, by Robert P. Jones, and Dying of Whiteness, by Jonathan Mentzl. See my Grokking Republicans Diary series from a few years back.
Grokking Republicans Book List
Planet 3.0 The future, considered seriously.
Honest, wide-ranging, scientifically informed conversation about sustainable technologies and cultures, toward a thriving future
They put out
The Golden Horseshoe Award
Following on a tradition started by Peter Gleick, this is an attempt to review the most misleading climate stories of 2012. As suggested by Eli, we will rename this from the “Bad Science” (or “BS”) award to the “Golden Horseshoe Award”.
Named in honor of a Dashiell Hammett mystery of that name.
I was reading a sign high on the wall behind the bar:
‘Only genuine pre-war British and American whiskeys served here’
I was trying to count how many lies could be found in those nine words, and had reached four, with promise of more…”
I count five, maybe six, but I wasn't interrupted by a case.
Electric Cars Today
USA
EVRater: The Electric Vehicle List, just cars, actually
Too many to list here individually. 30 manufacturers. 63 models. Hooray!
Prices $23,800 (Smart Fortwo ED)-$104,000 (Tesla Model X Performance)
Then there are trucks, from pickups to 18-wheelers, buses, motorcycles, and more. More lists below.
World
Lots more. W00t!
List of electric cars currently available
List of production battery electric vehicles, past, present and future, scooters to 18-wheelers
List of modern production plug-in electric vehicles
I am not going to discuss what you should buy. There are plenty of others playing that game. We are here to play out the endgame for ICEs.
Electric Cars Tomorrow
Two years ago, I wrote Peak Gasoline Looming Out of Smog in India, China.
This is not the beginning of the end for gasoline. But, as Churchill described Rommell's defeat at El Alamein during WW II, it may be the end of the beginning.
Now we really are looking at the beginning of the end.
For tomorrow's cars starting from today, start with the links in the previous section. They include more than 30 announced models not yet available. Some are in testing, some are still in development. Some may not make it to market. Then there are the hundreds of models promised but not individually announced for further in the future. Right up to the point where ICEs, gasoline and diesel, go entirely away.
Nine countries say they’ll ban internal combustion engines. So far, it’s just words.
Yes, at that time, just last year, the dates ranged from 2025 onward, and the laws on the subject only talk about taxes or fines for oil-burners, and incentives for EVs. But that doesn't matter. We won't need bans when electric cars cost less to buy than ICE gas guzzlers, gasoline or diesel, have better performance, and cost far less to run and maintain.
Norway, where 52% of new car sales were electric in 2017, gifts EV buyers thousands of dollars in perks such as free or subsidized parking, tolls, and charging, as well as generous tax breaks.
In the UK, where buyers also get tax breaks for clean vehicles, London is expanding an “ultra low emission zone,” imposing a £12.50 ($16.39) daily fee for cars deemed too polluting (generally conventional vehicles registered after 2005). These standards will go into effect next April, and only tighten over time.
Both Climate Leader and Oil Giant? A Norwegian Paradox
Norway hopes that only electric cars will be sold in the country by 2025
Britain to Ban New Diesel and Gas Cars by 2040
Britain announced on Wednesday that sales of new diesel and gas cars would reach the end of the road by 2040.
How Internal Combustion Engines Will Die Out in Eurasia
Denmark announced a ban on new internal combustion engine cars this month, joining at least 13 other nations now looking to limit ICE sales. The Danish ICE ban will come into effect in 2030 and will prohibit the sale of new fossil-fueled cars.
The announcement means Denmark is now the 14th country in the world to set an ICE phaseout date, according to data collated by the Center for Climate Protection (CCP), a California-based nonprofit working to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The CCP survey of global activity lists three countries that have ongoing incentive schemes aimed at phasing out ICEs, without having announced a cutoff point for sales.
Asia only has four countries that have announced ICE bans. But the impact of the phaseouts could be significant given the size of the nations concerned.
South Korea has an official target of 30 percent of all new car sales being electric by 2020, India is aiming to ban all ICEs by 2030, and China and Taiwan are intending to follow suit by 2040. Japan, like Spain and Portugal, currently offers electric vehicle incentives.
Two other countries on the list are Israel, which plans to cease ICE imports from 2030, and Costa Rica, the sole nation in the Americas to be considering a fossil-fuel car ban, which will start to phase out ICEs from 2021.
Costa Rica frequently gets 100% of its electricity from renewables.
It is remarkable that India is on record going ahead of China on this issue, when it is so far behind by so many other measures, including the strangling effect of Indian bureaucracy.
Renewable Friday: India Since COP21
tl;dr India will be one of the biggest markets for renewables in the world, but insists on doing it by fighting the forces of economics, instead of working with them. The Licence Raj Lives!
India Aims to End The Sale Of Petrol And Diesel Cars By 2030
India is looking at having an all-electric car fleet by 2030 with an express objective of lowering the fuel import bill and running cost of vehicles - says Piyush Goyal, Minister of Power, Coal New and Renewable Energy and Mines.
This is the same Piyush Goyal who vowed only four years ago to double the number of coal plants in India.
France Plans to End Sales of Gas and Diesel Cars by 2040
France is joining a growing movement to force the extinction of vehicles that run on fossil fuels, saying on Thursday that it would aim to end the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2040.
More News from Manufacturers
Now, you will note that only a little of this is in the MSM. Such stories abound in the tech and trade press, for the aficionados who want to drive them, and for the business people who want to sell them or buy fleets of them, or invest in companies that do.There is far more of this than I can do justice to, but these will do to keep us going.
Building a high-powered Chinese-designed sports car, the Qiantu K50, in the heart of bright Red Washington/Idaho Survivalist territory. Think The Postman. (The book was better than the disastrous movie. Brin writes in SF tropes and style, but his books are fantasies.) 0-60 mph in under 4.2 seconds, with a range of 250 miles.
Volvo, Betting on Electric, Moves to Phase Out Conventional Engines
Volvo Cars on Wednesday became the first mainstream automaker to sound the death knell of the internal combustion engine, saying that all the models it introduces starting in 2019 will be either hybrids or powered solely by batteries.
Sooner or later every car company will have to do the same.
VW plans 27 electric cars by 2022 on new platform
Christian Senger, VW Group's head of electric cars, said electric cars based on the MEB architecture will incorporate fast-charging, and promised an 80-percent charge in about 30 minutes. Volkswagen has indicated the cars will have about 250 miles of range between charges.
In all, Volkswagen has set aside $7 billion to make the switch to electric cars, and could be working on as many as 80 different models worldwide across all its brands.
VW to launch 70 EV models in nine years.
Volkswagen announced plans to launch 70 new electric vehicle models by 2028, an aggressive campaign to electrify its fleet.
CleanTechnica: World’s 10 Biggest Automakers & Their EV Plans
GM, Ford, Honda, Fiat Chrysler, and Renault are way behind the curve, but management has been awakened by hammer blows from the competition, including emerging manufacturers in China.
[Fiat Chrysler] CEO Sergio Marchionne, who passed on [in 2017], was heavily opposed to electrifying the fleet.
Electric Cars Are A Global Threat, Says Marchionne
Echoing sentiments often expressed by acolytes of the Koch brothers, Il Patrón Marchionne intoned, “It was always make-believe that electric cars save anything like the amount of CO2 claimed for them. Before we assume electric vehicles are the ultimate answer, we need to consider cradle-to-grave lifecycle.”
In fact, Marchionne claimed that electric cars would increase carbon emissions, because they would be powered by coal-fired plants. I cannot express how innumerate that opinion was. It is in the range of
2 - 3 = 6
Green Car Reports: Fiat Chrysler submits offer for Renault merger, could jump-start electric car development
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles proposed a merger Monday with French automaker Renault that would result in one of the world's largest automakers by volume and create one of the most diverse.
FCA's interest in the deal could include Renault's significant investments in EV development—an area in which FCA has sorely lagged. Under former CEO Carlos Ghosn, Renault quickly adopted electrification and has become Europe's largest EV manufacturer, by sales. By contrast, FCA's vehicle portfolio has recently focused on big, heavy vehicles with little electrification—and no clear timetable for their deployment in markets where EVs are increasingly becoming mandatory. In Europe alone, FCA has paid hundreds of millions for emissions credits to offset their big, thirsty vehicle lineup.
Also,
Ford announced at the Detroit Motor Show 2018 that it will invest $11 billion in electric vehicles, and plans to have 40 electrified vehicles on the road by 2022, 16 of which will be fully electric, while the rest will be plug-in hybrids.
We all know that Tesla wanted to launch another car and the Model Y slips in to the space between the Model 3 and the Model X, a compact SUV. The interior leans towards the Model 3, while the range offers 242 miles with a 0-60mph time of 5.9 seconds, on the most affordable model. It will seat seven, come with long range and performance versions and be hitting the road in 2020.
While VW has sweeping plans, it's the ID - its most compact model - that's the closest to real life. This is a purpose built EV - rather than a converted model like the e-Golf - and VW sees it sitting in the same sort of space. It will be the price of a diesel Golf, and it should be hitting roads in 2020.
Prototypes of the VW ID have already been driven as VW begins the charm offensive with what it seems as a mass market electric car. It should perhaps have other quaking in their boots, as this is likely to be one of the most important electric cars to launch so far.
Yes, Kia is a pretty unique position of being able to launch a second-gen electric car. There's a new model of the Soul EV - due in late-March 2019 - and it's had a big boost over the outgoing model. The new Kia Soul gets fitted with a 64kWh battery so it will offer range of 280 miles, although a 39.2kWh model will also be available with a 172 mile range.
There's a vegan interior on the Concept model, with Audi saying that it wants to push the eco message even further.
Vegan? I get using no leather, but where in a car would you put eggs, milk, honey, or…?
Tesla begins construction of GW factory in China
The US electric car maker wants to start production of its Model 3 in the Chinese factory. Next year, according to high-profile CEO Elon Musk, mass production of electric cars will start there.
Tesla borrows $520m from Chinese state-owned lenders for Shanghai Gigafactory
to produce 500,000 autos, engines and batteries per year.
BMW, Tesla open factories in China, driving EV market in spite of trade-dispute
In the wake of the U.S.-China trade dispute, the Chinese government has loosened its policy on ownership caps for factory sites for foreign car brands. Previously, car companies could only retain 50% of the ownership of a factory and had to set up a joint venture with a Chinese partner. By setting up shop in China, Tesla can avoid import duties on its cars, to cater to a broader customer base.
BMW Motor Group and Great Wall Motor signed an agreement whereby the two companies will set up a new joint venture “Spotlight Automotive Limited” to jointly develop and produce EV’s for the Chinese market.
The new joint venture is still pending approval by relevant authorities. Once permission is granted, the companies will build a new production facility in China’s Jiangsu Province. The companies further specify that the joint venture will focus on the development and production of battery-electric MINI’s. BMW, in an earlier announcement, disclosed that it would commence the production of battery-electric in the main MINI plant in Oxford, U.K.
BTW, Tesla is now turning profits. Another Denialism bites the dust.
Tesla posts back-to-back profits for the first time
Oil News
Who are we planning on selling our fracked oil to?
Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
The once-powerful partnership between fracking companies and Wall Street is fraying as the industry struggles to attract investors after nearly a decade of losing money.
China oil demand could peak by 2025.
China is already the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, and EVs could translate into peak demand – at least in China – as early as 2025. That conclusion comes from Morgan Stanley, which sees a peak coming much sooner than most analysts. “China will no longer be the growth driver of global crude demand,” Andy Meng wrote in March 5 report. “We believe the refiners and petroleum stations are the largest potential losers, while the battery companies are likely to become the key winners.”
China's electric buses are killing oil demand
- A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests that China's electric-bus revolution could kill off oil demand in the future.
- By the end of 2019, 270,000 barrels a day of diesel will be taken out of the market as a result of China's switch to non-fossil fuel engines.
- The report indicates that buses and other large passenger vehicles account for a far greater proportion of oil displacement than cars.
For example, in the growing mega city of Shenzen, the entire 16,000 strong fleet of buses run on electric engines and taxis will soon follow suit.
There you go. I did sneak in some larger vehicles, didn't I? Some Friday we will do Tesla and Cummins and other buses and 18-wheelers properly.