Nonsensical
Garel Rhys, professor emeritus in economics at Cardiff Business School, said predictions attempting to forecast the take-up of electric vehicles are so varied, suggesting the reality won't be dominance for electric power.

 

'In my view, the Brown forecast is so unlikely that it borders on the nonsensical,' Rhys said.

 

Brown is having a hard time in Britain at the moment after just completing his first year as Prime Minister replacing Tony Blair. Brown, and his governing Labour Party, is languishing in the opinion polls behind the opposition Conservative (Tory) Party, not least because his mantra during 10 years as Blair's finance minister was to brag that he had ended 'Tory (economic) boom and bust.' The British economy is currently demonstrating that this claim was probably spurious.

 

Rhys said by 2020, he expects there will still be a wide range of choices for car buyers in America and Europe.

Menu of solutions

'I think there will be a menu of solutions, with different technologies appropriate to different countries and uses with petrol (gasoline) and diesel still in the majority. The only possible challenge to that is a major breakthrough in hydrogen technology over and above the fuel cell, using gas or liquid, but that's well out in the future -- 2030 -- but I've no great confidence that we will be in a hydrogen society even by then. The hydrogen solution will probably be post 2050,' Rhys said.

 

Alan Madian, director of U.S. expert services advisory firm LECG, agrees that not only will the take-up of electric plug-in vehicles in the U.S. still be relatively low by 2030, the choice of vehicles will indeed be wide.

 

Washington, DC-based Madian said that by 2030, plug-in hybrids will still only have a U.S. market share of around 25 percent, with petrol-electric hybrids taking the electric-assisted share to upward of 35 percent of sales. Plug-ins will move up to about 50 percent of sales by 2036.

 

Given that Europe has much smaller, lighter cars and an already high penetration of fuel-efficient diesel engines and turbocharged gasoline engines inspired by much higher fuel prices, electric take-up there is likely to be less than in the U.S., unless governments step in with regulations to insist drivers buy plug-ins and hybrids. Americans driving big V8s will probably seek hybrid help to curb fuel use.

Cellulosic ethanol

By 2030, Madian reckons that American drivers will also go for smaller turbocharged gasoline engines, and diesels, while second-generation cellulosic ethanol will also make a big impact.

 

Madian says the launch of plug-in hybrids like the Volt in 2010 assume much technological progress.

 

'They (GM) are hoping they'll get the 40 mile range, but that's premised on driving very gently because if you accelerate too rapidly, say trying to get on a highway, you can halve the battery range. I think it certainly is a promising technology and may be dominant in the second half of the 21st century. The technology will suit large parts of the U.S. and Britain because there are lots of single-family houses so the infrastructure is there for charging. But if you look at high-density apartment buildings, the recharging infrastructure becomes a major challenge,' Madian said.

 

'The economics for plug-ins aren't there yet. Manufacturers are cutting down the cost curve and going up the range curve, but they're not there yet,' Madian said.

 

Munich, Germany based-Roland Berger Strategy Consultants said in a report that prospects for electric cars are better than ever, but not even close to the scenario painted by Britain's Brown.

One quarter in Europe

Roland Berger reckons that electric vehicles of all kinds -- plug-ins, petrol-electric hybrids and battery-powered cars -- will reach 10 percent of the global market by 2020, with Europe hitting up to one quarter in its market.

 

'Europe is one of the projected front-runners with an electric vehicle (EV) share of up to 25 per cent due to its leading role in environmental technologies, government pressure, and fertile customer ground for EV market penetration,' the report said.

 

Roland Berger also assumes that the batteries on vehicles like the Volt will have a range of more than 90 miles without any help from the backup engine. It also agrees that hydrogen isn't likely to feature strongly until at least 2020.

 

These vehicles will provide an exciting drive while you're helping the environment with your emission-free motor (at least while you're driving. The CO2 will still be generated at the coal-fired electricity generating plant unless it's nuclear).

 

'The new generation of electric vehicles coming to the market in the next few years will be very competitive with current internal combustion-engine cars in terms of performance and comfort. The old image of 'golf-carts' will disappear quickly and may even be reversed by the year 2020 as a result of the very attractive torque and response characteristics of electric motors,' the Roland Berger report said.

Niche

Unless Prime Minister Brown or whoever wins the race for the White House plan to mandate use of electric cars, they are unlikely to be more than niche vehicles for the foreseeable future, even if all the hurdles to use are jumped.

 

'There are still many big problems to solve for hybrids and plug-ins; it's a huge leap of faith to go from something totally out of the picture now to think that by 2020 the problem has been solved, despite the huge sums the manufacturers are investing. We've seen huge amounts of money going to find cures for cancer and it's still a huge killer. You can't just mandate that an issue be solved by throwing money at it,' said Cardiff Business School's Rhys.