A remarkable year for electric vehicles in 2011

From John Gartner, on Huffington Post: The first Chevrolet Volts, Nissan Leafs, and Smart EDs were delivered in December, but in the annals of history, 2011 will be remembered as the year that electric vehicles (EVs) arrived. EVs for sale to consumers will dominate the headlines throughout the year as average Americans begin to recognize EVs as they roll down the road.

Because of the stalled start in the 1990s, when consumers were tempted by and then denied access to GM's EV1 and other EVs, every milestone during the year will be magnified in the media. By year's end nearly new 50,000 EVs will be plugging in at garages and lots across America. The arrival of new models from automakers Think, Coda, Mitsubishi, Mini, Toyota, and Chevrolet (a few of which were delayed from 2010) will give consumers more options.

Any missteps -- and there will be some -- will be cause célèbre for the EV doubters who don't believe in or desire a move away fossil fuels. Humans have always been fallible in designing and operating vehicles, and replacing liquid fuel with electrons won't change that. While considerable safeguards have been put in place to prevent accidents when charging a vehicle, somewhere someone will find a creative way for failure, and we can expect considerable fanfare by the naysayers when this inevitably occurs.

One of the important trends of 2011 we've identified at Pike Research will be the slow subsiding of the catch phrase "range anxiety." Range anxiety is the supposed fear that both prevents consumers from wanting to buy an EV with a 80-100 mile driving range or from driving said car very far for fear that the batteries will run out, leaving the driver stranded. Range anxiety has been overblown, underestimating drivers' ability to monitor their battery charge level through the various dashboard displays and auditory prompts.

Like the arrival of EVs, the rollout of charging infrastructure has been slower than expected off the line. However, installations of public charging infrastructure such as the government-subsidized EV Project and Charge Point America will see hundreds of charging stations installed across many of the nation's largest metropolitan areas. The availability of public charging equipment will actually outpace the need for vehicles to plug-in, which will result in many charge spots idled for most of the day, or even days at a time. While this will be the subject of derision as a waste of taxpayer money, if EVs instead outpaced charging infrastructure, it could result in a serious setback as the minority of drivers who plan to regularly charge their vehicles away from home might otherwise wait to make a purchase.

The electric vehicles' second act will be a top media story throughout the year, even at the box office with the mid-year release of Revenge of the Electric Car (watch the trailer). Many consumers will get their first direct exposure to EVs by renting a car from one of the many rental agencies that will make emissions-free driving a premium service. Fleets including delivery vehicles and taxis will be critical for collecting data about EV performance and to build confidence that this time around, EVs are here to stay.

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Electric vehicle charging station market in the US to exceed $4B by 2016

Some interesting numbers in this study: Zpryme predicts the number of EV/PHEVs sold in 2016 will reach 203,200, and that the charging infrastructure and charging services market is will grow from $776.8 million in 2011 to $4.45 billion in 2016 (CAGR of 41.6%).

The projections in the electric vehicle study by Zpryme's EV Insights Practice and sponsored by Airbiquity (download ‘The Electric Vehicle Study’ for free www.zpryme.com) show that the charging service market value is expected to grow at faster rate than the charging station market value, but the charging station market is expected to be almost eight times larger than the service industry by 2016.

With such high anticipation for the growing U.S. EV market, developing and deploying charging stations has quickly become an extremely competitive race. Both large companies and start-ups are vying for market share, including Coulomb Technologies, ClipperCreek, ECOtality, ABB, GE, Siemens, Leviton, AeroVironment and Pep Stations.


Some key market value projections (2011 - 2016):


Electric vehicle sales:

Annual EV/PHEV unit sales are projected grow by 36.2% annually from 2011 to 2016, from 43,400 to 203,200.

The total EV/PHEV stock are projected to grow from 104,200 in 2011 to 730,700 in 2016.

Charging Stations:

Home (level II) charging station unit sales are projected to grow by 37.7% annually from 2011 to 2016, from 25,400 to 125,900.

Home (level II) charging station sales will grow from $239.6 million to $1.07 billion during this time period. Home charging stations are projected to account for 32.1% of the market value in 2011 and 27.0% in 2016.

Public (level II) charging station unit sales are projected to grow by 43.1% annually from 2011 to 2016, from 13,600 to 81,300.

Public (level II) charging station sales will grow from $282.0 million to $1.60 billion during this time period. Level II charging stations are projected to account for 37.8% of the market value in 2011 and 40.7% in 2016.

Fast (level III) charging station sales will grow from $193.4 million to $1.15 billion during this time period. Level III charging stations are projected to account for 25.9% of the market in 2011 and 29.1% 2016. (see table 1 above)

Fast (level III) charging station unit sales are projected to grow by 44.2% annually from 2011 to 2016, from 2,200 to 13,500.

EV Charging Service Users:

Annual new charging service users are projected to grow by 40.4% annually from 2011 to 2016, from 27,600 to 150,400.

The cumulative total number of charging service users is projected to grow from 39,800 in 2011 to 574,900 million in 2016.

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Electric vehicles are here, charging stations are not

From the New York Times: The Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf were delivered to their first customers last week, and a small fleet of Think City electric vehicles were handed over to the State of Indiana for use in state parks. The plug-in E.V. has arrived, and it begs the question: will a public charging network be available to support the cars?

Led by Coulomb Technologies and Ecotality, the first home chargers are being installed. A robust and targeted public network is coming, but it is still very much a work in progress.

Read more at NYT...

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Better Place's answer to range anxiety? 60 seconds battery swaps

It's the biggest fear for any EV driver. Where and when are you going to find a plug-in charging station? Whereas in countries like Portugal mobility networks are moving fast towards ubiquity with projects like Mobi.e, most nations are still far from it, with just a handful of charging stations in a few cities, with the most unusual service schedules (take San Francisco, for instance).

More than an electric vehicle's relatively high price, it's the lack of a comprehensive charging infrastructure, especially when gas stations are everywhere, that keeps many consumers from buying a Nissan Leaf or a Chevrolet Volt right now. It shouldn't be a problem if you have your own charging device at home. But it is. Today's electric vehicles get between 30 to 150 kms with a full battery. When it runs out, it can take up to four hours to fully recharge it. That means that going away for the weekend with your EV is still out of question, unless you don't mind stopping every other town for several hours.

This is why Better Place presents quite an interesting solution. Instead of plug-in stations, the California based company offers a network of battery switch stations that use a robotic system to switch depleted batteries for fully-charged ones, and charge the depleted batteries in inventory, so that there's a fully-charged battery ready to be installed, in a matter of seconds (60 second switches have been accomplished in tests) each time the vehicle arrives at a station. Kinda like changing your son's toy's AA battery, instead of recharging it every time it runs out.

The concept is already in practice in Israel, Denmark and Australia, though on a limited test basis. The US, Japan and China are the next targets for Better Place's internationalization strategy.

Sure, there are doubts about the practicability of this idea in the long run. Will everyone abdicate of being the owner of their own car's battery? What are the legal implications of that when, say, someone crashes their car and loses a battery? Will Better Place's closed model of business keep companies from developing better batteries with longer lives? And if and when they do develop them, what's the point of such a battery swap system? The German reflection group on mobility has said no to battery swaps, just as Volkswagen did. What does that mean for Better Place? Anyway, it is a brilliant idea, at least on paper, and it could well be a practical solution in these first years of the EV revolution.

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US still lack charging infrastructures

From NPR: The electric car is no longer just a project for smarty-pants MIT students. Here in the U.S., plug-in electric cars are now in showrooms and on the highways. What's missing, though, is a convenient way to refuel those cars with electricity.

That's what Russell Rankin has discovered. Rankin is an enthusiastic entrepreneur who has 13 electric vehicles charging up at the back of the Loews Hotel in Annapolis, Md. They're not quite cars, but they're more than golf carts — three rows of two seats, open on the sides, about 12 feet long. "Everybody kind of calls it a golf cart on steroids," says Rankin. "Or maybe something you'd see at Disney or something like that. It has a big bubble roof on it — it's very futuristic looking."

The vehicles are made by Global Electric Motorcars, owned by Chrysler. Rankin's company, eCruisers, uses them to squire people around the city for free. Advertising on the cars pays the freight.

After about 30 miles, the cars come back to recharge. "Our vehicles just run off a regular household outlet," Rankin says. "We have a regular three-pronged plug that you'd have on any household appliance." So that part is easy. The hard part is keeping cars charged when they're needed.

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Cars21: Germany's electricity grid ready for millions of EVs

From Cars21: An interim report of the National Electromobility Platform concludes that Germany’s grid is ready for electric vehicles. Only upgrades in some regions are needed to handle far more than the 1 million EVs on the street forecasted for 2020.

As part of the National Electromobility Platform (NEP), the working group "Charging Infrastructure and Network Integration" is chaired by experts from energy service provider E.ON AG and Siemens and submitted their key findings to the German federal government recently. The report points out that the German government’s smart grid plans, including the integration of up to 1 million electric cars by 2020, will generally not pose a problem for the power grid. Only in cases of a locally high density of electric cars could isolated segments of the grid be overloaded and require upgrading.

Read more (includes download links for the reports in German)...

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