[RABAUKE]

From the National Post

http://driving.ca/auto-news/news/312756

Motor Mouth: Governments looking through rose-coloured glasses for EV policy

It seems everyone wants EVs to take over in the near future, but no one can admit to the hurdles of today's limited technologies

Has there ever been a more market-distorting subsidy than the incentives Ontario ladled on Elon Musk this month? Not content on having North America’s most generous electric car rebate, Ontario announced plans to ‘invest’ up to $75,000 in every electric truck Tesla sells in Ontario.

Now, Canadian pricing for Tesla’s truck has not been finalized, but it would nonetheless be fair to say that you and I are going to be subsidizing about a third of the cost of Tesla’s ballyhooed zero-emissions grocery-haulers. Even for a government renowned for its largesse for anything green, the Green Commercial Vehicle Program is one humungous barrel of pork.

And one that speaks to perhaps a little desperation. Despite recently upping the EV subsidy to a maximum of $14,000, Ontario’s projections for EV penetration into the marketplace are lagging. Ms. Wynne had hoped that battery-powered cars would make up five per cent of the market by 2020, but sales are currently running at about a tenth that.

Ms, Wynne, however, isn’t the only person believing their own propaganda. Save for a few small countries with truly outsized subsidies, electric vehicles have never hit any of the phantasmagorical numbers projected. Nissan’s Leaf, for instance, is nowhere near the 10 per cent of global sales that CEO Carlos Ghosn promised for 2020. Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen — hell, virtually every automaker extent — have failed time and again to reach even more modest projections. Nor are automakers the only parties egregiously optimistic. Obama’s projection of one million EVs by 2015 proved positively Panglossian and anyone who thinks that 22 per cent of Quebecers will opt for plug-ins by 2025 probably also believe that Justice Charbonneau has banished corruption from the province’s famously venal politics.

The problem, however, is not one of hope but hype. The march to automotive electrification will not be stopped. In certain applications — inner city buses, local delivery vehicles — their penetration should and hopefully soon will be 100 per cent. But, the phantasmagorical numbers generating headlines — 25 per cent of all its sales by 2025, for instance, says Volkswagen — is fueling wholly unrealistic public expectations, not to mention, judging by Ontario’s latest program, distorted public policy.

Worse yet, reasonable discussions on the subject get precious little attention. So, while Bloomberg’s contention that 54 per cent of all cars will be electric by 2040, a Frost and Sullivan report, EV Car Wars: Who will win the battle between BEVs, PHEVs and FCEVs, passed largely unreported because, well, thanks to its reasonable conclusions, it offered no click-baiting headlines.

Indeed, while most of the basic formulae remain the same — like many analysts, Frost and Sullivan predicts that the cost of lithium ion batteries may reach a hundred or so dollars per kilowatt-hour by 2020 — its report posits plug-in hybrids are a superior solution. Indeed, the report concludes that, while BEVs require a complete overhaul of our electricity and transportation infrastructure in their quest for zero emissions, PHEVs could reduce CO2 emissions by 80 per cent with only local, i.e. home-based, grid upgrades required.

Nor does the promise of a fast charging infrastructure promise widespread adoption of BEVs, the company’s researchers noting that “contrary to what the industry believe, BEVs sales might not surge even with large-scale deployment of fast charging infrastructure,” citing Japan where “fast charging stations have reached saturation levels and yet EV sales still declined. The reason cited: Most of the drivers tend to travel long distance at the same moment (week-end, holidays) and a [projected] charging infrastructure … can’t address this peak demand.”

Indeed, the problem is detailed with even more exactness by a recent study — The Vehicle Refueling Wars: A comparison of Gasoline, Electric and Fuel cell Vehicles — that determined that, because of the loss of utility to the driver (the longer wait time) and the high cost of centralized refueling model, “it is questionable that even Ultra-fast DCFCs can serve as a replacement to gasoline refueling in a centralized refueling paradigm.”

The numbers are daunting. According to the report, while one gas pump can refuel as many as 1,024 cars per day, even a high-powered 350-kilowatt DC fast charger can only recharge 75 EVs in the same 24 hours, less than a tenth of conventional cars refueled. And, for the record Tesla fans, that company’s vaunted Supercharger is only good for 31 cars per day. It’s also worth noting here that there are approximately 900,000 fuel dispensers in the United States. Yes, the math is boggling.

Nor, as many electric vehicle proponents contend, is there any guarantee that home charging will be the easy solution to a future electrical infrastructure. In England— where, of course, the government has pledged to go completely plug-in by 2040 — the authors of Forecourt Thoughts: Mass fact Charging of Electric Vehicles posit that the cost of upgrading every home to the capacity needed for efficient EV recharging is so prohibitive that it makes more sense to simply recreate the current service station infrastructure, only substituting electrons for fossil fuels. In other words, only a well-off minority will enjoy the convenience of home-charging that is so much a part of electric car boosterism; the rest of the motoring populace will still have to seek out their local ‘Esso’, albeit with much longer wait times.

The point of all of this is that none of the predictions of future EV use should be taken as gospel. But it doesn’t mean we should not invest in an emissions-reduced future or that the battery-powered car will not play a significant part in that cleaner future.

But we really need to doff our rose-tinted glasses and apply a little ruthless logic to our projections. One should, as the time-aged adage prophesizes, always shoot for the stars, but setting public policy on getting there is a fool’s errand.

[JohnnyCanuck]

As usual, Booth nails it. He should be mandatory reading for the Elon Musk kool-aid drinking crowd. With the retirement of Peter Cheney, he's one of the few remaining auto writers worth reading left (Cato and Fletcher being the others).

[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

I guess the leftist love for Musk and EVs outweighs supporting big business with public funds to the tune of $75k per tractor. Smh.

[JohnnyCanuck]

I wouldn't say it's leftist, at least not in Canada. Only three provinces have substantial rebates/subsidies in place for EV's and in BC, it was brought in by a conservative government. While no one would describe Ontario's provincial government as fiscally conservative, that's a pretty mild descriptor of the Campbell/Clark governments here that established pretty substantial EV subsidies.

[RABAUKE]

Originally Posted by JohnnyCanuck

I wouldn't say it's leftist, at least not in Canada. Only three provinces have substantial rebates/subsidies in place for EV's and in BC, it was brought in by a conservative government. While no one would describe Ontario's provincial government as fiscally conservative, that's a pretty mild descriptor of the Campbell/Clark governments here that established pretty substantial EV subsidies.

The war on the car and fossil fuel is alive in well in Ontario.

[Bt12]

Not that I’m a greenie but there is a 2 degrees initiative going on. Even major oil co’s are embracing the electrification of the fleet.

[jmg]

Originally Posted by RABAUKE

One should, as the time-aged adage prophesizes, always shoot for the stars, but setting public policy on getting there is a fool’s errand.

Shoot for the stars... just don't try too hard?