March EV Report

March 22, 2022

UPDATE

  • Ukraine plant shutdowns could risk 15% of Europe’s car production forecast! (Bloomberg Hyperdrive 3/15/22)13,370 Electric Vehicle Illustrations & Clip Art - iStock
  • Norway’s ban on ICE vehicles begins in 2025 and then in 2030 Sweden, UK and the state of Washington will follow suit and California’s ban comes into effect in 2035.
  • Juniper Research recently released a report entitled “EV Charging: Key Opportunities, Challenges & Market Forecasts 2021-2026”. In that report, one of the significant numbers noted is that they forecast over 21m households globally will charge using a home wallbox. This is expected to result in a global spend exceeding $16B in 2026 for home chargers.
  • Paris has announced a ban on “most cars” driving through Paris by 2024. While the priority is for residents, a lot of questions remain as to how this ban will actually be implemented and enforced.
  • Worldwide sales of EVs hit 6.6m vehicles in 2021 according to the World Economic Forum. To put this number in perspective this rate shows more EVs were sold every week in 2021 than in the whole of 2012 and that is just 9 years ago.
  • A new plant is to be built in the Windsor-Essex area of Ontario by Stellantis and LG Energy to make batteries for EVs. No further details were available.

MANUFACTURERS

  • Tesla plans to produce 20,000,000 cars annually by 2030, up from the 1,000,000 produced in 2021. (Electrk 3/7/22)
  • VW has greenlighted a new $2.2B factory in Wolfsburg, Germany to produce high efficiency EVs. The project, codenamed “Trinity Project” says that vehicles produced in this plant are expected to have a much shorter charging time and a range of over 700kms (435 miles) on a full charge. Construction is expected to begin in 2023. (Electrek 3/7/22).

TRENDS

  • State of Utah passed a bill modifying road use fees for EVs. The purpose is have EV drivers pay their fair share of road costs. The fee to register an EV in Utah is now $120/year and will rise to $240/year by 2026.( St. George News 2/18/22).
  • Change Wind Corporation of NY has developed a Wind/Solar tower which it claims is the first device to combine wind and solar in one site. Their tower can generate 52.5 kw with a total annual output of 169,000 kwh. The tower is capable of charging 6 vehicles simultaneously. No further details were available at time of this report. (Green Car Reports 2/24/22)

NOTEWORTHY

An Israeli company, StoreDot is now producing new batteries capable of charging 100 miles (160 kms) in 2 minutes. Theoretically, a vehicle with a battery pack capable of 300 miles of range could recharge in 6 minutes. This could be another “game changer” indicator as this puts EV charging very close to the amount of time required to fill a conventional ICE vehicle. While this technology is probably 10 years away from full commercialization it does indicate that owning an EV will become easier and simpler. (BMW Blog 3/2/22).

Volvo is partnering with ChargePoint to install public EV chargers along the 1350 mile route from Denver to Seattle. These will be DC fast chargers capable of charging up to 90% of the battery within 40 minutes. The chargers are expected to be placed at 100 mile intervals along the route. While 40 minutes may be longer than some people want to spend at a Starbucks it does open the door to think of other possibilities where we already spend 15-60 minutes of our time on a regular basis. If places like McDonalds, Costco, Walmart, hotels, motels, grocery stores, schools, colleges and so on started adding chargers to their sites it would greatly improve the EV charging infrastructure. Since battery and charging technology will continue to improve significantly in the next decade it would seem like these could be “no brainer” opportunities for the private sector to embrace the transition to fossil free vehicles. Firestone apparently sees the opportunity as they have begun rolling out expanded services for EVs and hybrids and is partnering with Bridgestone Tires and Blink Charging to install 50 level 2 charging stations at 25 Firestone locations in the first quarter of 2022. ( Green Car Reports 2/24/22)

COMMENTARY: WHAT ABOUT THE JUICE

With all this talk about EVs there has been very little written about the impact increased EV ownership will have on our electrical infrastructure. To help answer this question I have found a couple of reports that may help. Bloomberg has said in one of their recent editorials that until 15% of the vehicles on the road go electric there will not be any real impact on Canada’s grid and that is not expected until 2035. Another report by McKinsey states that if 80% of all passenger cars become electric this would lead to a total increase of 10-15% in electrical capacity. Electric Mobility Canada concluded that if 80% of all 15,000 EVs now in use in Canada charged at the same time, the maximum demand on the grid would be 15mw/day during offpeak hours, a number well within Canada’s current capacity. The Alberta Electric System Operators published its Long Term Outlook and forecasted EVs will consume as much as 4,000mw by 2041. Putting this into perspective, the entire Alberta grid uses 10,000mw and it took the past 2 decades for all sectors in Alberta to increase the aggregrate load by 4,000 mw. A reasonable conclusion here is that in the near term the current grid capacity is not an obstacle to EV ownership in Canada. Electric Mobility Canada goes on to say “It is likely that most charging will occur overnight and that most EVs will be used for short, urban trips. Thanks to the potential for use of small, effficient EVs, off-setting reductions in electrical demand related to fossil fuels, existing surplus capacity at off-peak periods and the incremental increase of the use of EVs over time, the increase in electrical demand can be managed easily within the current electrical utility planning frame works.”  In the longer term this may change if needed action is not undertaken.

However, as readers may be aware the Canadian Government has already mandated under their Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act that by 2030 50% of all vehicles sold in Canada must be emissions free and by 2035,100% must be emissions free. However, there is very little in the Act that specifies how this will happen. In a CBC interview on December 12, 2021 the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association said “we haven’t done the planning and we haven’t put the investment into a charging network”. According to the International Energy Association (IEA) Canada is in the bottom 3 of the worlds’ biggest auto markets and #20 in terms of publicly available chargers.

On a personal note, based on the research I did before placing an order for an EV, I found that the charge rate for an in home charger ranged between $1.00 and $1.50/kwh. Based on the range estimate for this vehicle (delivery not expected until 2023), our driving habits and the ability to charge during off-peak hours I am expecting that I will need to charge the vehicle twice monthly and possibly 3 times on rare occasions. Estimated cost per charge is $8-$12 or around $20/month give or take. Based on last year’s fuel useage, I am predicting that my EV cost for charging will be about 75% less than what I paid for fuel.  I also discovered that the annual insurance on the new EV is actually $11 cheaper than my 2015 Mazda.

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

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