France takes the initiative on electric cars
by Ray Block
A study of electric vehicles- hybrids and all-electric by the consultancy Lux Research says that even if crude oil prices hit US$200 a barrel in 2020, hybrids and all- electrics would still make up only about 4 per of vehicles world wide.
The report “Unplugging the hype around electric vehicles” says that the price barrier of hybrids and all-electrics is due to the high cost of lithium-ion (li-ion) battery cells.
Lux Research, says while Li-ion battery technology is a “clear winner,” cell prices will drop from “over $720 kWh today to between $405/kWh and $445/kWh in 2020, depending on oil prices. That is still very dear.
The researchers say that regardless of oil prices, hybrids like Toyoto’s Prius with an electric motor and internal combustion engine should reach sales of 3 million units annually by 2020.
By comparison, plug- in hybrids, that is hybrids with batteries capable of being recharged would require oil prices around $200/barrel and all-electrics “will be a factor of ten smaller” even with oil at $200/barrel.
I may be barking up the wrong tree, but I think the market for electric vehicles will be a lot larger than the researchers suggest.
Impeding the market growth is not only the cost of batteries per kWh, but also the infrastructure required for a nation- wide network of battery-charging stations to encourage volume sales.
The AFP press agency (October 1 2009) said that France intends to take up the challenge of encouraging volume sales of electric cars, by committing to invest 1.5 billion euros (US$ 2.2 billion) on infrastructure for the 2 million electric cars and hybrids it wants on the road by 2020.
900 million euros of the total is expected from a state loan due to be launched in 2010. Under the plan, a million battery-charging stations will be built by 2015, 90 per cent of them in private homes, but also in car parks and at roadside sites.
From 2012, all new apartment blocks with parking lots will have to include charging stations. The French government will contribute 125 million euros from its strategic investment fund to the overall cost of 625 million euros for a Renault battery plant at Flins, near Paris. Another 100 million euros will be made available to other vehicle makers, such as Peugeot or Daimler’s Smart division.
AFP says that joint purchases by state authorities and major private companies will see orders for 100,000 electric vehicles by 2015, according to the plan.
By 2030,French ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo, said that “no player can take the risk alone, but if all the actors take it at the same time, that works.” The minister said that the aim is to “make the French energy and car industry a world leader.”
The aim is to build eco friendly vehicles to help reduce CO2 emissions. The project cost covers everything from industrial research, making batteries, producing clean cars and building a network of battery-charging stations.
The electric car plan comes after the Sarkozy Government’s green plan to spend more than seven billion euros ($10 billion) to develop freight transport by rail and reduce road traffic.
If the ambitious French plan is driven jointly by industry and the government, which looks fairly certain, it isn’t difficult to imagine Germany also taking up the cause of the electric car, once the French scheme is off and running.
And with both the US, Japan, China and South Korea all charging into the race, the multipliers in the market will make the Lux Research report findings somewhat irrelevant.
By 2030, the emissions-free vehicle sector is projected to be worth some 15 billion euros in France alone, representing 27 per cent of the total market.
Renault and its leading competitor Peugeot-Citroen, which share the same ambitions of the government are enthusiastic about the likelihood of having electric vehicles on the market by 2012. The two companies see electric cars making up more than 10 per cent of the market by 2020.
Whether there will be enough lithium for hybrid and all-electric vehicle batteries is debateable. The Car Tech blog (September 22 2009) thinks there is enough-”oodles of the stuff- at least for the next decade. Beyond that, though opinions differ.”
Bolivia, the dominant supply source, currently doesn’t produce lithium, but holds almost 40 per cent of known reserves. Chile produces 39 per cent of annual production, China 13 per cent, Australia and Russia each around 11 per cent, Argentina 10 per cent and United States 8 per cent.
Given that lithium is an expensive, relatively scarce metal, the rush to lithium-ion batteries may be somewhat unwise, given the large potential investment by a number of battery companies in Li-ion.
But if the emphasis is to reduce demand for oil in transportation, on grounds of reducing carbon emissions, it is essential that electric vehicles need to quickly become affordable to the mass market. It is hard to see how Li-ion batteries are ever going to fit into the category of becoming affordable.
There are a number of alternative batteries which could be used, but the most practical would seem to be in the development of zinc air batteries, where the raw materials are cheap and easily abundant.
Two companies are jumping into the zinc air space. One of these is ReVolt Technology LLC, a spinoff of Norway’s SINTEF, the largest independent research group in Scandinavia. Other investors include the German energy group RWE, NorthZone Ventures(Sweden), Sofinnova Partners (France), TVM Capital (Germany), Verdane Capital and Viking Venture, both of Norway.
The other company in zinc air is PowerAir, a start up from the US government research arm Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
A 2007 research paper by William Tahil of Meridian International Research of France says that zinc air batteries have the “highest specific energy and lowest cost of any electric vehicle rechargeable battery technology.”
The researcher also adds that “zinc is the cheapest and most abundant battery metal, and the only metal which can sustain large battery production in the volumes required by the global automotive industry.”
Toyoto is said to have investigated zinc air as a possible replacement for lithium-ion in future auto battery production. It will be interesting to see when the world’s largest auto company starts releasing its all-electric car in 2012, whether zinc air is part of the package.
US headquarters and manufacturing centre for ReVolt will be in Portland Oregon
Posted under Climate Change, Economies, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies, World Inflation
The French government seems to have decided that the way to crack this dilemma is to build a network of charging stations using taxpayer money as part of a broader initiative to encourage the development of clean vehicle technology and battery manufacturing in the country.
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