'mass adoption' of EV's possible in 5-7 years?
After just watching Elon Musk’s P1 demonstration video posted a couple weeks ago (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/), I’m very confident that this technology can be deployed and adopted rapidly within 5-7 years. The three remaining hurdles are: (1) a world-wide re-powering station infrastructure comparable to the existing gasoline station infrastructure, (2) a solution to the political nightmare of managing massive layoffs at traditional auto companies and (3) crafting acceptable deals with investor-owned and state-owned oil companies that would persuade them not to use their political power to slow the technological progression.
Shai’s supposed to be taking care of the first problem. Does anyone have any comments regarding the last two?
Australia's suggested solution - Garnaut Climate Change Review
I have just been addressing these issues, for the Garnaut Climate Change review in Australia, which is exploring policy options for the new government (www.garnautreview.org.au).
My recommendation (available online www.valman.blogspot.com) was a Low Carbon Incentive Scheme, to sit alongside the Carbon price policy (a cap and trade system).
The scheme would include compensation to workers to move from the old to new clean industries, as well as a focus on developing clean power and clean transport.
Garnaut is concerned with technology lock-in and technology trajectory, ie resistance from those industries with the most to lose (ie all their profits), and this is thoughtfully analysed in their paper by Foxon(2003) from the UK Carbon Trust. See paper online at - (file link too long to provide) http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/public-forums-res...
While Australia does not have big oil companies to deal with, we have a big coal industry, and of course, the car industry. I am talking to a General Motors representative tomorrow about the plan. Will be interested to see what he thinks.
The point of the Incentive Scheme is that the old industries can participate in the pursuit of new revenue streams. Persuading them not to use their political power is unlikely to be viable, but this scheme suggests consumers acting together, may wield a bigger political power. The idea is to mobilise it.
Richard
Innovation Researcher, Melbourne
Hidden assumptions
Why do you assume that the big car manufacturers will need to layoff people? It seems that you have an hidden hypothesis that EVs development and mass production will be lead by new entrants at the expense of the current car manufacturers. I believe that it is on the contrary, the market will follow Clay Christensen’s innovators dilemma paradigm where external, disruptive forces come out with the breakthrough (due to their flexibility to ignore traditional views and customer voices) that will shift the whole industry. Then when momentum will be created the incumbents will jump on the bandwagon.
See what is going on right now, true that many new entrants (Tesla, TH!NK, Zap, etc.) are pushing the EV agenda but already some incumbents like Renault-Nissan and Volvo/SAAB are committed to serial production of EVs in the near future.
If you believe that manufacturing EVs will entail more efficiencies, automation and workforce restructuring this is something else but then why would you assume that?
Problem not car industry but oil producers
The Car industry will adapt kicking and screaming to a world with high oilprices and a fear of global warming. Upstarts like Tesla are leading the way, the big guys will follow. The oil producing countries are a different matter entirely. Many of these countries are very dependend on their oil revenues and they stand to loose hundreds of billions worth of crude sales in the event of a premature (say in the next 10 years) shift to a non crude based transportation system. More over they'll loose their political leverage on the west. It's highly questionable that the current high oil prices are just the result of high demand. They are more likely the result of a deliberate limited supply as a result of a joint effort of anti-western countries like Russia, saudi arabia, Iran and Venezuela to weaken the western economies to further their own agenda's . The political and economic consequences of new technology for these countries is dramatic and it's reasonable to assume that they'll do whatever it takes to slow down changes. And there is no way to buy off interests of this magnitude. However in a world with growing demand for alternative energy supplies they probably can't stop change from happening. There are many ways to slow it down however for parties with loads of petro dollars.
Oil producers
The first inclination is to think that oil exploring (there is no way to produce oil, just to explore and refine it) countries will resist alternative energy initiatives like PBP. However, reality shows that this is not necessarily the case. A point in case is the new Abu Dhabi initiative to build the first completely green city in the desert ($5B investment) including electrical transportation modes (trains, cars, etc.). Also, note that the largest PBP investor is Israel Corp which owns the Israeli refineries. Thinking about it more it makes sense, the energy industry incumbents have two choices, stand in front of the freight train that is coming at them and try to resist it or jump on it. The savvy ones define their business in broader terms than just oil and jump on the train.
Oil industry will slow down new technology
Of course the oilindustry knows it will have to jump on the freighttrain of new technolgy that is storming towards them eventually. But don't forget they are riding the ultimate gravy train right now. They are pumping up crude at a very small cost and can sell it at basically any price at a market that has no choice but to accept it. It's like printing your own money. That's why speculation is rampent and profits are ludicrous. These guys are in no hurry to switch tracks and will do what ever is in their power to keep their gravy train going. And with the kind of money they have they are in a position to slow down new technology from hitting the market. It's significant that plenty of upstarts in the EV and electricity storage market claim to be comming up with something new soon, but it's never today,allways in a few years or so. If you look at the kind of financing sources that buy their way into these companies, there is little reason for optimism. For instance, the Phoenix motors company is taken over by a Dubai based petro dollar investment company. Safe to say they won't be turning out any competitive EV's any time soon.
Another example is Dr. Yi Cui of Stanford University, who had developed a silicon nanowire anode for lithium-ion batteries. A
result of his unique chemistry were experimental cells that could store
10 times the energy of current lithium ion batteries. This guy found an unexpected source of funding for his research: from Saudi Arabia! This oil giant has just awarded him with a $ 10.000.000 grant "to expand his research" . Yeah right. It isn’t known to me whether any inventions stemming from research
supported by this grant become in any way property of the Saudis. But you can bet your ass on it!
The much hyped EEStor capacitor storage technology (twice the capacity per weight unit as li-ion, fraction of the price, very short charging time) has attracted a rather sinister investor. This is Lockheed Martin, and yes this is that dinosaur of the military
industrial complex that has a vested interest in a world that is
destabilized by the struggle of procuring commodities like oil in order
to shift it’s high-tech military hardware. Safe bet that this technology won't be heard of again anytime soon.
Still not convinced? Here is a link to another story about stalling the introduction of zero-emission vehicles, this time involving the US car industry:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airboard11apr11,1,7245966,full.story