Analysts predict 85 million EVs on roads by 2025 despite industry speed bumps Tech analysts forecast that the number of electric vehicles (EVs) in use will grow by 33 percent in 2025, and 73 percent will be battery-powered (BEVs). The global figure given by consultants at Gartner is driven primarily by higher EV sales in China (58 percent) and Europe (24 percent). The regions are expected to account for …
For perspective, there are approximately 1.475 billion vehicles in the world [according to Google]. So the numbers above are not great. If the human race makes it to 2050, most of those in the Global South will still be driving ICE vehicles.
Early adopters, like Apple fan boys, are easy. For the rest, it will be like removing molluscs from a rock with your butt cheeks.
The self-driving stuff torpedoed the focus on EV development. We could be a lot further ahead.
There will be more problems as these cars have too much tech, removing their resilience and increasing their cost/complexity/supply chain needs. When a vendor goes bust they will just stop working. To really spin EVs out globally, we need a 'Model T' EV - as simple and cheap as is physically possible. Batteries, analogue controls, FM radio, furry dice, no frills. Of course if the Chinese did this, the EU would stick a tariff on it and the US would ban it.
Go read the EU report on EV subsidies. It's quite damning. Yes many countries apply subsidies to certain strategic industries (The UK does not, which is why we've lost most of them...). But the subsidies and economic aid provided to EV manufacturers in China is off the scale - with the explicit aim of ensuring that every EV is made in China.
At some point, you have to try to preserve some local jobs, surely?
"When a vendor goes bust they will just stop working."
Rich Rebuilds has an episode on a Fiskar Ocean. No docs, no replacement parts, no manufacturer updates, no parts to update WTF engineering issues. The lack of any service documentation is a massive issue or it would be possible to get some of these orphan EV's and hack them into something useful while deleting the frilly extras so those don't malfunction and lock out the car.
Been working in engine prototyping for years. Probably covering 50% of all the western (and a couple of Chinese) car makers. For the last few years we've been prototyping your standard petrol & electric power plant, your newer electric meter powered by ICE and your pure EV.
Work at the moment is completely dead.
Why?
Because the manufacturers themselves don't have a clue what format of powerplant they want
. Som are going hybrid, some looking at all electric, some hydrogen and others a mix of everything
So Gartner....yeah.
Following on from the comment re 1.475 billion ICE's in the world, the secondary issue (cost being the first) for the owners of say 1 billion of these cars is that the ICE's they have can be fixed, the owners can get parts for decades old cars so they can keep them running and they can do the work themselves or at some cheap local shop
EV's not so much.
Firstly, EV's are very much "software defined" cars so when some computer based hardware or software component fails, the owner is screwed. The cloud based servers go off line...the owner is screwed. Do we think the car companies are going to keep the cloud services up for decades... don't think so.
Secondly, will the owner of a decades old EV be able to get a new battery to keep it on the road.... very much doubt it.
Poorer people (the vast majority of ICE owners) not only need access to cheap second hand cars but also cheap second hand cars that have a good supply of parts and can be fixed at home or by a local shop.
As this isn't (and may never be the case), the dream of a world where most cars are EV's is dead in the water.
Bluck
"Secondly, will the owner of a decades old EV be able to get a new battery to keep it on the road.... very much doubt it."
The issue isn't the battery, per se, it's DRM on a battery that prevents a third party replacement or refurbished pack to be used. If you look at the Prius, there are lots of options to repair/replace and upgrade the batteries in the ones now out of warranty. If there's a profit to be made, there will be a company that will make replacements. If you have a car from the 1980's, chances are the AC compressor isn't made anymore, but there are companies that rebuild cores, clean them up and offer them for sale. They might not be on the shelf of your local parts store, but can be ordered.
The concern is all the black boxes loaded with IC's that have their numbers scrubbed off or have been marked with OEM in-house numbers. The nasty trick the companies play to force you to buy parts and service from them is to include a serial number that has to be registered with the car's main controller for it to work. This keeps you safe through not allowing you to salvage a part from a wrecked vehicle at the dismantling yard to replace a dead unit in your car. That's the story, but I'm not seeing how that makes us safer. If you want to buy a car at auction and rebuild it, good luck. While you might get it to work, you might not be able to get it to work with a certain company's fast chargers, use the phone app or update maps without taking the car in, giving the company a pile of money to have them re-bless the car, if they will. Until you do, the VIN is blackballed with them.
I think this should be the main focus of government trading standards agencies. Vehicles are the first or second most expensive thing people own so keeping them operational is important. They are also huge users of raw materials and energy to manufacture so keeping them functional as long as possible before recycling as much as possible is the best thing for a human sustaining environment.
I don't get why these companies are so worried about making sure they have a big captive customer base. It's a key feature to have a product that can be serviced and parts being available to service the product along with good documentation. If I bought a complete breakdown of a vehicle from Munro, I could in theory copy that vehicle. In practice, I could buy several new ones for less money so withholding the service information by saying "trade secret" is a lie. The competition that want to copy something don't need the docs as they can reverse engineer the thing nearly as fast. Sitting under the monitor is a list of factory parts for my car that I'll be ordering soon to fix this and that. Silly me, I bought a plastic bit that holds the hood prop from eBay and, of course, it's crap and doesn't fit. Turns out I can have the OEM one for $3.50. The new battery box parts so I can fit a larger 12v battery is less money than salvaged bits on eBay. Why wouldn't I buy new OEM if that's the case?
"Firstly, EV's are very much "software defined" cars so when some computer based hardware or software component fails, the owner is screwed. The cloud based servers go off line...the owner is screwed. "
It's the unobtainable hardware that's software locked that's an issue to keeping the car going. The car should keep driving without updates, but it might mean needing to buy a stand alone SatNav to chuck up on the dash (again). My car doesn't have any of that "connected" stuff and has never needed software updates. I swapped out the OEM radio with an Android head unit and now have gobs of functionality that can be updated or the app just replaced if it comes to that. I'm not sure if there will come a time when I need to replace that unit again so it can run the latest SatNav app or version of Torque Pro, but it wasn't very expensive and will likely be doable. With an OEM SatNav, once the support is gone, that might be it.
The functions of the car being a car, transportation, are more important than the frippery so it's important that can be kept maintained. If there's "tech" in the way, that's a problem.
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