Journey of Electric Vehicles : A Global Perspective

I will start by revisiting the history of the automobile industry and I will dive right in. 20th century saw horse-run carriages as the only means of transport. However with the advent of industrial revolution, people began to experiment with newer forms of transport. Petrol, steam and electric versions of transport began to compete fiercely with each other. Nicholas James Cugnot was the one to invent vehicles run by steam-engines. He invented steam tricycle which sowed the seeds for revolution of the automobile industry. However, his inventions saw a slight turbulence as steam vehicles required a long start up time and had a limited range. It was practically impossible to use them for a long distance travel. This was overcome by the vehicles fuelled by internal combustion engines (ICE) which were invented by Siegfried Marcus in 1870. Incremental developments were made to the model later by many engineers and scientists including Karl Benz, Nikolaus Otto and Rudolph Diesel. However, the first electric vehicle was invented in the year 1884 by an engineer named Thomas Parker. The concept of electric vehicles is not a newfound one. It had its roots way back in 19th century. However, their viability was questionable then. The roads outside the cities were of extremely poor quality which made commuting by an electric vehicle difficult (The rockier the road gets, more power the vehicle consumes). However, Henry Ford brought in huge obstacles to electric vehicle industry. Ford’s Model T costed $650 in 1912 whereas the price of electric vehicle amounted to a $1750. The consumers were more averse in buying electrically powered automobile as they were extremely high priced. Nevertheless, the discovery of abundant crude and faster developments in gasoline engines wiped out the electric vehicles completely from the face of the earth. However, in today’s times, looking at the deteriorating air quality and depleting oil reserves, it has become imperative for us to repaint the picture of electric vehicles with a much broader brush.

Electric vehicles incurred a very high cost primarily because of its increasing battery costs. However, over time battery costs have declined 80% which has given many automobile manufactures the incentive to venture into electric vehicles. Some of leading bigwigs in the business are Beijing Auto Industry Corporation, Zhidou, General Motors, Tesla, Kiah Motors and many more. However, with respect to batteries, there is still an unexplored area; the environmental issue concerning waste management of electric batteries. International Energy Agency estimates there will be 140 million electric cars globally by 2030 if countries adhere to the Paris climate agreement targets. This could leave 11 million tonnes of lithium-ion batteries to be recycled between now and 2030. Lithium ion when burnt can emit toxic gases and can have enormous environmental repercussions. Europe has therefore expressed serious concerns in venturing into the domain of electric vehicles. In fact the growth in terms of registration for electric vehicles is just 7% in Europe whereas United States of America and China have 37% and 70% growth respectively. In terms of climate change, Japan is moving on right course. After 50 nuclear power plants were shut down in the wake of the Fukushima accident, Electric vehicles are expected to significantly contribute to climate change. The situation in China is exactly opposite. With coal comprising approximately 70% of China’s electricity generation, the carbon intensity of the grid is high.

However, China has done exceedingly well in the commercial aspect of electric vehicles. Their primary motive was to reduce dependency on fuel imports and improve air quality (The air quality improvement is far from being realized considering the huge dependency on coal for electricity generation).  59 % of global sales of electric vehicles originate from China. The reason for this massive number is declining costs of batteries. With decreasing battery costs and a revised subsidy scheme, production has scaled up considerably in China. Chinese Government has planned to install 4.5 million units of charging posts by the year 2020 and also convert public transport buses to electric vehicles (at least 30 % by 2020). On the flip side, India needs to reduce air pollution at the earliest. However, simply introducing electric vehicles won’t do the trick. In India, coal is used majorly to produce electricity. More electricity being produced, more coal is burnt to degrade the air quality. Therefore, India should focus on bringing in renewables as a major energy producer and reduce its reliance on coal. Electric vehicles should be the logical next step after this change is implemented on a large scale. 

As per report by J.P.Morgan, electric vehicles contribute 30 % of vehicle sales worldwide. This figure is expected to increase by 7.7 % by 2025. By 2030, 60 percent of the vehicle sales will be attributable to electric vehicles.