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WEEKLY COMMENTARY
Provided by EV Worldwire
In This Edition:
NAIAS 2012 Electric Car Line-Up No, EVs are here to stay. There’s too much at stake financially, environmentally, geopolitically to abandon them, much less ignore them. The newest electric drive -- battery and electric hybrid -- models on display this year in Detroit fill the next six pages. We have left out cars like the Volt, the LEAF, and the ‘i’, as well as more conventional hybrids, including those from Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen. Those vehicles are the ‘safe’ bets by the OEMs; the bridge between total oil dependence and the liberation of fuel choice. Less Than Great ExpectationsKlaus Sommer, with Continental Corporation, the European automotive parts and tire giant, delivered a presentation in Hanover, Germany last December 2011. The topic was ‘international requirements and expectations for e-Mobility.’ While EV World wasn’t on hand to hear his talk, he did make his slides available, and they offer informative insights into the attitudes of people living in 10 global megacities and four countries: Germany, the USA, France and China. The company interviewed by telephone 1000 people in each of the ten cities, and another 500 young people online in each megacity. The results, as depicted on Herr Sommer’s slides, highlight the commonalities and chasms in understanding and expectations across regional boundaries. Here is a summary of what that study discovered. If you’re a automotive company with 146,000 employees in 46 countries with net sales of $33 billion annually supplying millions of parts to OEMs and consumers alike, you want to have as complete a picture as possible of where your industry is going. At what point do you stop building gasoline engine parts and start building fuel cell stacks? The first thing you’d want to know is how important to you is owning a car? As you might expect, it is pretty important to the people they surveyed in China, France, Germany and the United States; all scoring in the 80 percentile range, with 0 being unimportant and 100 being most important. When asked how important it was to ‘have a car that others view highly,’ there was a much wider divergence, with Germans showing the least concern and Chinese, the most. As the questions began to focus on alternative-fueled vehicles, the pollsters asked questions like, Would it bother you a great deal if you had to recharge your car every 150 km (93 miles)? Here 56% of US respondents indicated it would, while Germany and China tied at 72%. French respondents were at 64%. Next they were asked how long it would be before e-drive was mature enough that they would be driving one. With the exception of Germany (46%), the majority in the other three countries thought it would a ‘long time’ before the technology was ‘mature.’ Further questioning revealed that 15 years was not consider a ‘long time.’ More hearteningly, when asked whether they would “rather drive an electric car than a car with conventional propulsion already today,” the responses ranged from a low of 21 (USA) to a high of 42 (China). One set of questions investigated attitudes towards carsharing schemes among the 18-35 year-old age group as part of the online survey. This group showed a significant interest in this approach to vehicle ownership, with scores well in the 70+ range for all megacities. Only in Moscow was there a pronounced disinterest in the notion of private car ownership among this age group, with one-third preferring to own their own vehicles. On the question of automobile usage, 40% of the cars owned by respondents were not being used on the day of the survey; and when those cars are used, they are typically driven less than 100 km (62mi) in a day. Government incentives are important in all four countries, from the USA’s 59% to China’s 80%. Other perks and incentives also scored high, except HOV lane privileges in Germany where only 16% though it an acceptable inducement. How aware where the people being questioned about various types of alt-fuel vehicles? When it come to electrics, diesels, hybrids, ethanol, etc., electrics scored the highest. 61% in Germany said they were aware of them, with the USA, France and China scoring 40, 43, and 61, respectively. Of course, being aware of EVs and hybrids (and here the French are the least aware, which suggests their government and media need to do a better job), doesn’t mean respondents will buy them or use them, as the charts on page 5 illustrate. Sommer encouragingly concludes that “Open mindedness prevails over skepticism towards electric vehicles.” He adds that consumers “expect mid-size cars to be suitable for daily use.” And the bottom line is that even today, a larger market exists for electric vehicles. You can download the slides of the study here: http://tinyurl.com/C0nt1emobile
Let the Media Bashing Begin The silver lining in all this EV bashing is that (1) it is expected, so let’s deal with it; and (2) ultimately it will help spur the development of even better products.
The Triumph of Two Wheels + Battery Here is an interesting thought: In 2016 we can expect that there will be more electric bicycles in use, worldwide, than cars in use in the USA. That is just electric bikes, not including the many electric motor scooters / motor cycles that are coming soon. It is clear to any thoughtful person that the world is close to the end of the time when personal transportation can rely on fossil fuels. Never mind the constraints in supply, rising price, environmental and political issues – it is no longer necessary. Battery electric works. More than 150 million humans now use battery electric vehicles on a daily basis. And with oil prices headed north of $100 / Bbl, and a number of successful battery electric and hybrid electric cars on the market, it seems that the EV business is looking at an even better future. Be careful with that term “EV”. I thought it meant Electric Vehicle. But I was informed not long ago that, to Americans, it means an electric car. Electric cars are still a tiny, and struggling business. Though rapidly becoming successful, electric cars are exactly the tiny, short ranged, and boring in concept, vehicles that have been presented for decades. While I think they are overdue, they are not very creative. And they do not own any transportation niche (yet). And they have a cultural problem. They represent a reduction in utility for the user of a fossil fuel vehicle. While there may not be a real problem in accepting the reduced utility – it is not human nature to go in that direction. So in North America, (which is really the only totally-car culture) EVs will struggle for a while yet. For very large parts of the human race, the gas-powered car is not, and never has been their primary transportation. For most humans, to walk, to ride a bike, take the metro, or ride an electric bicycle is their daily travel method. Owning a gas-powered car is regarded as an expensive and not very practical luxury by most humans. These folks are actually making decisions based on utility, not affordability. A car, especially now, is simply not that expensive. But for most humans the most useful vehicles are two wheelers. Consider that more than half of the human race now lives in cities. And the largest cities in the world are really, really big – and mostly in Asia. Those megacities are usually in flat, coastal terrain. And in many cases there are 40-50,000 people living in 20-plus story towers – per square kilometer! One of the features of such a living environment is no room for parking, no room for roadways, and no need to go very far – a typical trip is measured in blocks or to the nearest metro station. The perfect vehicle for such environments is the bicycle. No noise, no emissions, easy to park, no need for multi lane roadways. It is important to realize that in China, Japan, Vietnam, India, Most of Africa, most of SE Asia, and much of South and Central America (That adds up to a LOT of people, far and away the majority of the humans on earth), a bicycle is regarded as primary transportation. Even in Western Europe – home of many famous automakers – more than 33 million people claim bicycles as their primary mode of transportation. And yes, even in the USA, there are millions of people who depend on bicycles. (Look behind your local restaurants, hotels, and markets for the ever-present cluster of chained up bicycles used by the staff to get to work.) Every year, humans buy something in the vicinity of 130 million bicycles. Far more bicycles than cars are in use. But the world and most humans are getting richer. And one of the first things a human does when the pocket is full is buy new wheels. We like to travel, we want to be comfortable, and in many places our wheels are part of our image to the world. For billions of humans, the upgrade from a bicycle is a motorcycle. Motorcycles sell well in most of the places that have a bicycle culture, and in many more places that do not. While data varies, it seems that humans buy about 80 million gasoline powered two wheelers every year, worldwide. Motorcycles have some disagreeable attributes. They are noisy, and the fuel is expensive. In some places, like India, Italy, and Taiwan, there have been experiments with programs to replace gas motorcycles with electric or alternative fuel bikes. In China, they are often banned outright in many cities. And the rising cost of fuel is hard on the owners, or in the case of nations where the government subsidies the price of gasoline to keep the motorcyclists on the road, it is hard on the government budget. However, the real growth in powered two wheelers is the electric bicycle. And it will soon be the electric motor scooter / light motorcycle. China Bicycle Association (which is really a semigovernmental body that governs the two wheeler business of China, says that 2010 saw 29 million electric bikes sold in China. Constraints of battery supplies in 2011 may have kept major growth from happening – not a lack of customers. (It is widely commented in China that while a car is wonderful, there is no place to park it, traffic jams are always a problem. Thus even for car owners in China, an electric bike is better for nearly every daily function.) Major bicycle brands and OEMs, world wide are placing more and more R&D and design effort on electric. The near legendary Fairly Bike Manufacturing of Taipei is now a well established ODM (original design manufacturer) as well as OEM (original equipment manufacturer) builder of electric bikes for more than 17 years. In Europe, the Sparta Bicycle Brand of the Accell Group recently celebrated shipping their 400,000th electric bike. There are more than 100 models of electric bicycles sold in the EU, and the total sales are thought to be more than 1.4 million in 2011. The largest builder of two wheelers in the world, Hero Group of India, just bought a worldwide electric bike brand, and announced intentions to distribute in North America, India, and Europe. Since hundreds of thousands (soon to be in the millions) of ebikes and emotor scooters are selling in India now, that is not surprising. Japan buys between 300 and 400, 000 electric bikes each year – and please remember that Japan is actually a pretty small place, one that is famous for….cars and motorcycles! Yamaha announced in 2009 that their best selling single model, alongside all the many successful motorcycles they sell, is the PAS electric bicycle! KYMCO, the 5th largest motorcycle maker in the world, and the nemesis of established brands worldwide (KYMCO motor scooters simply work very well, inexpensively, for many years, and are less expensive to buy.) has just established an electric bicycle brand. The big Domestic Chinese builders of ebikes and components are now reaching out to build their brands in the west. Some of the Chinese companies enjoy millions of units in annual sales. Companies like 8Fun motor company of Suzhou, Lishen Battery Company of Tianjin, and the famous Flying Pigeon Bicycle Company of Tianjin are significant and powerful, international players. Add to this the explorations of the ebike industry that many car and car parts makers: Ford debuted an ebike at the Frankfort Motor Show in 2011, Honda is not only showing the Moto Compo, but has an electric motor scooter in test in Barcelona. Peugoet, BMW, SMART, VW, Hyundai, Piaggio, and GM / Segway, are all showing concepts or approaching production. The big parts makers, Mando of Korea, Bosch, Matra of France, and Magna of Canada are already in the electric bike / scooter or component business. As are LG Chem, LG Innotek, Panasonic, Sony, and nearly every other battery maker. The significance of these actions is that it shows that many capable organizations and executives are seeing and reacting to the importance of the electric powered two wheeler. It is my belief that not only will battery electric motor scooters become a favorite with consumers on their own merits, but also that many governments will ban fossil fuel scooters once acceptable electric ones are available. Given the clear trends and forces described above, my prediction is that the electric bicycle business will rise to a worldwide volume of about 65 million units – and one in two normal bicycles will be replaced with an electric version. (Which is the case today in China. And appears to be the trend in Holland, Germany, and Switzerland.) And I predict that the electric motor scooter, even more attractive to much of the world, will replace all gasoline light motorcycles and motor scooters – a volume of about 65 million or more. Thus the number of 130 million units per year, by the year 2025 is predicted. However, unlike the staid electric car category, there is great creativity being applied to the electric two wheeler. Electric two wheelers with weather protection, gyro stabilized fully enclosed two wheelers, mono wheelers, side by side (Segway / GM ) transporters, sleek aero two and three wheelers, retro motorcycle / bicycle looks that are electric powered, and more are all being explored, or manufactured. And “connected” electric two wheelers are still another dimension yet to be explored. The billions of urban dwellers who will need and use battery electric personal mobility will inevitably shape the products into machines that I may not be able to imagine today. So my predictions may be wrong – since I am writing this in the age of the “electric bicycle” which is strikingly similar to an old term for an auto “horseless carriage”. But I do believe they will have a battery and a pair of wheels. Current Views: 948 |
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