December EV Report

December 17, 2021

The following EV Report was written and contributed by SGIN Member: Andrew McPherson (abmcpherson@gmail.com)

MANUFACTURERS UPDATE

  • Genesis, the luxury division of Hyundai announced it will build its last ICE vehicle by 2025 and by 2030 the company will phase out the last of its ICE vehicles and be 100% emissions free. (Market Watch 11/16/21)
  • Volvo and its sister company Polestar has announced a $3.3B investment in battery development and manufacturing. This investment includes a new R&D centre in Gothenburg, Sweden and a new manufacturing plant at a TBD location in Europe. Project work is to commence in 2022. ( Car Buzz 12/12/21)
  • By the end of 2026, VW expects 25% of its global sales to be electric. To prepare for this coming change VW will spend approximately $100B to speed its push towards electrification. This expenditure includes new factories throughout Europe as building a separate battery manufacturing plant in Germany. (CNN 12/9/21)

INFRASTRUCTURE

  • EVGO, in partnership with GM plans to build 3250 more DC charging stalls in 52 US metropolitan areas by 2025. (Charging Networks 11/12/21)
  • The British Government has introduced legislation requiring all newly built homes and offices to feature EV chargers starting next year. ( Electrek November 21)
  • Norway continues to be the leading market for EVs in terms of adaptation on a per capita basis. Last month 73.8% of car sales were all electric and that number goes to 94.9% when hybrids are included. Norway’s target of being 100% EV by 2025 seems quite doable. The trigger for Norway that created this turn around was that their government felt they needed to induce a market correction by taxing ICE vehicles to truly represent their costs thereby making EVs and hybrids more economically advantageous to consumers. ( Electrek 12/3/21)
  • On December 8, President Biden signed an executive order to transition the acquisition of only zero emission vehicles for the federal vehicle fleet by 2035. Estimated number of vehicles impacted is 600,000. (Driving 12/8/21)
  • The Biden Administration has just unveiled an ambitious plan to develop and improve the national EV charging infrastructure. This is a follow up to the recently passed $550B infrastructure deal. This follow up deal has earmarked $5B to invest in EV chargers and $17B to loan to technology companies for battery manufacturing and development as well as for other manufacturers supporting the EV supply chain. (ZD Net 12/14/21)

TRENDS

  • Swedish battery supplier Northvolt announced that is Revolt recycling program has produced a functioning battery using recycled metals. As a result of this pilot program, Northvolt now plans to build a plant that it claims will be able to recycle 125,000 tons of used batteries annually. (Green Car Reports 11/16/21).
  • Bi-directional or vehicle to grid charging, a capability that involves exporting electricity from a vehicle’s battery to another vehicle, home, building or the grid is an evolving technology. Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Rivian and VW all currently offer vehicles with this functionality. However, there are a number of hurdles to overcome before this technology becomes mainstream. Issues such as cost, currently $5000 more than conventional one way chargers, degradation of battery life and the need for larger, faster charging batteries are at the top of the list.

ISSUES, OBSERVATIONS

In their latest report, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) forecasted that Canada’s oil production is likely to continue rising until 2032 and natural gas until 2040. Clearly inconsistent with the 1.5 degree target agreed to at COP 26 let alone achieve net zero by 2050. And in this report lies the most elementary problem facing transition of the EV marketplace. As noted in my previous 2 reports, manufacturers and some countries are prepared to spend billions of dollars to develop product for this market but so far very little has been committed to developing the resources needed to produce the electricity this change will require. And Canada, among many other countries seems ill prepared to handle this change.

Pilot programs have already been conducted in various locations around the globe to determine what would happen if EV owners in a designated area all plugged in their vehicles at the same time. In every case, the transformers servicing those area blew. Clearly, we have capacity issues or at the very least a capacity delivery issue. I don’t believe for one moment that global manufacturers and all the associated  industries impacted by this change are spending these huge amounts of money in vain. Technology can accomplish amazing changes in incredibly short time lines but leadership at the political level that can look long term and take needed action now is essential. In the end, the marketplace will dictate success or failure but the political element determines whether this will be an easy transition or a very difficult one.

There is an excellent book, A Good War by Seth Klein about mobilizing Canada for the climate emergency that is upon us. It should be required reading for every politician and every citizen.

If you would like to share any informative articles or reports, please submit to Jenn Bowes (jenn@sgin.ca)