A Better Place battery switch at an event in Yokohomo, Japan.
Credit: Better Place; Photoalto
Bleary-eyed, just out of bed, you make your way to the garage. Groping your hand round the corner, you flick on the light and check the meter on the charge-indicator box attached to the wall. Overnight, the car has charged up nicely. It will easily get you to work and back, but it might be worth trying to add a little extra juice during breakfast, just in case.
At the press of a button you read the current price of electricity. You can probably get a better deal at the charge station at work during the day. It's Friday, so maybe if you charge up cheaply, you can even sell something back to the grid at a better price this evening. After all, you aren't expecting to go out.
Welcome to the world of plug-in electric cars! If you live in a city, there's a chance your next car will be fuelled from the grid. The driving experience won't seem radically different. Your vehicle will, if anything, be faster, as well as cleaner, quieter and easier to manoeuvre.
But a whole lifestyle and the segment of society that caters for it will change: how you purchase, fuel, maintain and use your car, as well as how it is manufactured, sold and serviced, where you buy your fuel, and where the parts are made.
In addition, the advent of plug-in electric vehicles may also hasten the spread of renewable energy, with the growing fleet stimulating demand and becoming a giant storage battery that can help to stabilise the electricity grid.
The demise and reorientation of the U.S. automobile industry - which saw the bankruptcy of the once-mighty General Motors in February 2009 - is just the beginning of a technological avalanche that could sweep away not only the world's major car makers, but also dependent industries such as parts manufacturers and service stations - even the neighbourhood mechanic.
In their place, a plethora of new enterprises will arise that lease cars and batteries; build and operate charge stations; design, make and program smart automotive electronics; and companies which process and recycle light metals and other new materials.
"When you consider what the new technologies that we apply to sustainable automotive engineering look like, and compare them with the current industry footprint, they are substantially different," says Barrie Finnin, manager of the Advanced Engineering Components team of Australia's national science agency the CSIRO, which works on components for automotive, defence and aerospace uses.
"The plug-in electric vehicle is utterly disruptive," says Richard Hunwick, a Sydney-based energy industry consultant. This is partly because it cannot be built on conventional production lines and would require a restructuring of the motoring industry and infrastructure.
Nevertheless, he believes the shift to plug-in electric cars is inevitable. And he's not alone. Almost every major car manufacturer - Toyota, Peugeot, General Motors, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Audi, Renault-Nissan, Volvo, Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz - has an electric vehicle either in production or slated for release over the next five years.
They have no choice, says Hunwick. "Plug-in electric vehicles are coming," he told an Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering symposium on alternative transport fuels in Melbourne in November 2008. "If any incumbents resist the trend, the demand will be met from start-up Chinese or Indian manufacturers." He points to legendary American financier Warren Buffett, who has already invested US$230 million in Chinese company BYD Auto, a battery maker headquartered in Shenzhen that has begun to manufacture plug-in electric cars.
Electric vehicles
UK Jonathan Silver is the founder of Electric Transport Limited & Electric Revolution Limited in the UK. US Jonathan Silver is the man in Washington investing in alternative energy. Electric Revolution was the UK first electric scooter / moped retail store in the UK. The electric revolution is gathering pace.
Just Wondering...
... but where is all the electricity going to come from? After all, we can't build any nuclear plants thanks to the enviro-theists, coal and oil are going to be hamstrung with Cap'n Trade, wind farms and solar panels are proving to be expensive boondoggles and aren't allowed where rich people can see them (Ted Kennedy and Cape Cod), and most places in the world are inappropriate for geothermal plants.
Oh, and what about the terribly toxic metals that make up the batteries that will be in those electric cars? They can only be recharged a set number of times, then they must be replaced. Where do they go?
I'd love an electric car. But not if it's going to cost me more to recharge than it takes to fill my current car with gasoline.
Maybe we ought to think these things through a bit more.
Electric Revolution---Electric Cars
Excellent and very comprehensive look at the future of cars in Australia, the US and most of the world.
Also a refreshing non-US and non-big oil bias for a change.
Dean Grant
Chicago, Illinois