7 minute read
News Analysis
Sales of new cars dried up almost completely for a few weeks during the first Coronavirus lockdown last year, but when they came back, something had changed – permanently
Electric car charges ahead
Mark Bursa
THE RECOVERY HAS SEEN A significant shift toward electric vehicles rather than petrol or diesel. The shift has been so dramatic that the Government’s goal of ceasing all petrol and diesel new car sales by 2030 has gone from looking fanciful to realistic.
Was it the pandemic that focused the minds of car buyers, who noticed a remarkably cleaner atmosphere last April and May when we really were locked down? Or is it simply because car manufacturers’ planned EV launches are now happening?
In 2020, UK car registrations fell by 29.4%, and the total of 1.63 million cars sold was the lowest total since 1992. Against this collapse, plug-in vehicles took a 10% share of the market – a massive increase on the 3% or so achieved in 2019, when the market topped 2.3 million.
Certainly, there is a considerably greater choice of EVs on the market now – it wasn’t long ago that you had a choice of Tesla or Nissan Leaf, and when new models arrived, such as Kia e-Niro or Hyundai Ioniq EV, eager potential buyers found themselves at the bottom of months-long waiting lists.
Now, as we’ll see, the choice is much greater – though not all sectors are well
By the numbers
Best-selling battery electric vehicles in Europe, 2020
1 Renault Zoe 99,261 2 Tesla Model 3 85,713 3 Volkswagen ID3 56,118 4 Hyundai Kona 47,796 5 Volkswagen eGolf 33,650 6 Peugeot e208 31,287 7 Kia eNiro 31,019 8 Nissan Leaf 30,916 8 Audi E-tron 26,454 10 BMW i3 23,113
served as yet. Chauffeurs wanting to go electric are still sorely lacking in choice. And Transport for London’s decision to allow only plug-in vehicles to be licensed from 2020 onwards is having a negative effect on the market, with many operators hanging on to their older cars, simply because nothing is available to replace them.
Nevertheless, the growth is impressive. By the end of April 2021, there were more than 245,000 pure electric cars on UK roads, as well as 270,000 plugin hybrids (PHEVs). In 2020, we saw the biggest annual increase in plug-in vehicle registrations.
More than 175,000 electric vehicles were registered, a 66% rise on 2019. Perhaps most remarkably, the Tesla Model 3 was the UK’s overall best-selling car in December 2020, with 5,798 registrations putting it ahead of Vauxhall Corsa and Ford Fiesta.
OK, plug-in sales are only a small fraction – less than 2% – of the overall UK car parc. But as new models become available, and marketing efforts shift to EVs, that percentage will grow.
In April 2021 alone, 18,752 new plug-in vehicles were registered: 9,152 BEVs and 9,600 PHEVs, giving a combined market share of 13.3%. In 2015, just 1.1% of new car registrations were plug-ins.
As new models are rolled out, more market sectors are being covered by electric models. While initial EVs tended to be small city cars or coupes, by the end of 2021, you’ll be able to find a choice of vehicles in every sector from city car to SUV to MPV to luxury saloon.
Indeed, the obstacle to growth will not be the availability of vehicles: it will be infrastructure. The number of public charging points is growing, and the Government does seem to have woken up to the need to invest – but many believe it is not growing fast enough.
How many EV charging points are there in the UK? According to Zap-Map, which monitors the market, the total number of
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Hydrogen: a better direction?
Just as petrol and diesel have coexisted for decades, there’s an alternative zero-emissions fuel source to batteries which is not going to go away – hydrogen.
Hydrogen has some very major advantages – range is not an issue, and recharging is no more difficult than filling up with LPG. And it has disadvantages. The fuel cells required to turn hydrogen into electricity are very expensive. Only a few car makers are committed to the technology – mainly Hyundai and Toyota, and both have hedged their bets to some degree by backing EV technology too.
Perhaps the biggest issue is extracting the hydrogen itself. This has traditionally involved using fossil fuels, and critics say the process is inefficient, using more energy than it creates. However, that might be about to change. And the prime driver behind hydrogen is the commercial vehicle market.
Cars make up 44.3% of EU transport emissions, but light- and heavy-duty trucks contribute a sizable 27.9% as well. And it’s not so easy to develop battery-electric heavy trucks. Batteries are heavy, and you’d need a lot of them to move a 44-tonne artic. That would compromise the payload, making the vehicle inefficient. Which is where hydrogen – the lightest substance on the planet – comes in.
A consortium of heavy truck firms has already put its weight behind the technology for lorries. And now Stellantis, the merged PSA-FCA auto giant, has confirmed it will begin production this year of a hydrogen fuelcell powered van based on the battery-electric Peugeot e-Expert/Citroën ë-Dispatch/Vauxhall Vivaro-e.
The vans will initially be available for left-hand drive markets, with RHD UK models following by early 2023. The vans will have a range of up to 250 miles, a refuelling time of three minutes and a cargo volume up to 6cu m. Passenger versions are likely to follow.
With both Hyundai’s Nexo SUV and a much more attractive secondgeneration Toyota Mirai now on sale, hydrogen is taking increasingly steps toward becoming the alternative’s alternative.
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locations which have a public charging point installed is 15,431; the number of devices at those locations is 24,201 and the total number of connectors within these devices is 41,660.
Of the 24,201 charge points, 1,004 are “ultra-rapid” chargers – that means a capacity of 100kW up to the very fastest available 350kW chargers. There are also 3,538 “rapid” chargers, which offer 50100kW charging and will deliver 100 miles or more of range for most modern EVs in less than an hour.
But the bulk of the available chargers are either “fast” – 22kW devices (13,838); or “slow” – 4-7kW (5,831). These are fine for overnight charging or workplace charging if a car is idle for several hours. But for high-use fleets such as taxi operators, these are of limited use.
Between the end of 2016 and 2020 there was an increase of 220% in the number of public chargers, and much of the growth is slow chargers, as local authorities install on-street charging options to help people without off-street parking make the switch to electric.
But some are questioning whether the installation of chargers is keeping up with EV sales. Research by EO, one of the biggest network providers, revealed that the number of public EV charge points in the UK increased by just 26% over the past 12 months, compared with a 186% rise in sales of EVs in 2020.
Charlie Jardine, CEO and founder of EO, said: “While the best scenario for EV drivers is to be able to charge at home or at work, this is not always possible. It is vital that we develop an extensive and
reliable public charging network both for private and business road users. Without it, we risk putting people off EVs when the ball is just starting to roll.”
As the market progresses, it is clear that we’re nowhere near the definitive solution for electrification. lithium batteries are currently the dominant power source, but these carry their own, legitimate, environmental concerns about lithium extraction and the mining of rare metals such as cobalt.
Lithium is not the only game in town, though there are efforts to improve the ecological impact of producing them. In the future, the development of solid state batteries offers a chance to make battery packs about half the size of current ones – or conversely, to make packs the same size with twice the capacity.
Solid state batteries replace the liquids that conduct energy within the battery for solid compounds, so they will be more robust with a longer life. The technology is some way off, but is likely to be available some time around the 2030 cut-off for ICE sales.
