The rEVolution Might not Come as Early as Anticipated
Issue 7 (13/08/2022) - An Article looking at the EV Industry and what it may need to continue its expansion. However, there are certain shortcomings and challenges that it needs to overcome...
Electric Vehicles - no, not the toy cars that you move around with a remote and a pair of AA batteries. I’m talking about the exciting industry of silent and smooth cars with huge trunks of space and futuristic sleek designs that happen to run on all electric motors. It seems like every car manufacturer's dream is shifting and leading this EV race.
No, the inspiration of this article is not Tesla, nor is it Lucid (although I do prefer Lucid’s designs over Tesla’s), but rather the unveiling of the Mercedes-Benz EQS and the Fiat 500. Both of these are electric cars at drastically different price points, suggesting that running electric is not only for the rich and famous - but seems to be a new yet maturing market slowly opening to all.
The point of this article is not to tell you what EV is, how quickly the industry is growing, but more of a reflection on what things are necessary to see the industry prosper.
“Hey Siri… EV Gas Charging Stations Near Me”
Okay, let me paint a picture…
You’re driving, either a road trip, a Costco run, or just one of those typical 2 am drives to get Insomnia cookies from San Francisco (trust me, I’ve done this a few more times then I’d like to admit), and your tank is low on fuel. You add a stop to a gas station near you on Google by saying “Gas Stations Near Me”, and voila! This station adds a mere 1-2 miles to your trip, extending the drive by 5-10 minutes MAX.
This is a minor inconvenience which takes no more than 20 minutes from driving, fueling, paying, and jetting off to your final destination to the baked heaven of Insomnia Cookies. Fast forward to your Brand new all electric vehicle. If you live in California, life is fantastic - find a charging station nearly as easily as a gas station and wait 15 minutes to charge up to 200 miles of range (Tesla Supercharger statistics).
But, should you embark on a lovely road trip that takes you out of the State, you can kiss your fast charging goodbye, and call yourself lucky if you get slower AC charging ports for your car. Now, sadly your road trip has faltered into a frenzy of waiting to charge your car and driving in the gaps in between.
The infrastructure for charging stations must become more expansive and available in areas with lower distances in between. However, where availability decreases, so does the demand for electric vehicles. So… as Plutarch states, this brings the problem of who came first, the chicken or the egg…
For context, below is a lovely chart depicting the top 10 states with regards to “Total EVs”. Much to nobody’s surprise, California maintains over 43% of the nation's electric cars and just over 30% of the total charging ports. Compare that to the lowest 10 states from Figure 2, the EV to Charger Port ratio dwindles from a high of 41 [New Jersey] to 4 [Wyoming].
Figure 1: Table describing the distribution of EVs and Ports by State [TOP 10 States]
Figure 2: Table describing the distribution of EVs and Ports by State [BOTTOM 10 States]
Solutions
Simultaneous Causality
So of course somehow you must influence both sides of the pendulum, the availability of charging stations, and perhaps the more inelastic one of the two: the number of electric vehicles sold in such states.
I pitched this conundrum to my housemate, and he referenced a class he had taken at Cal a few semesters ago where we needed to discuss simultaneous causality. Simply, this is when two variables on each side of a model equation have the ability to influence each other. In such situations, the more price elastic of the two needs a greater push to encourage adoption of the other factor. Having EV charging stations that are more expansive is a grander problem that, which, once solved: would encourage greater adoption of electric cars. This solution requires a large, and awfully risky, investment from either a privatised company, or a significant government grant.
American Muscle is Part of the American Dream
Unfortunately, the streetcar named desire doesn’t run on batteries, but on diesel and petrol engines instead. The American dream runs synonymous with the notion of a car - especially one that is American made, with a large engine, that revs in the most intimidating way possible. Unfortunately, although we see a great push for electric vehicles for environmental concerns, households tremendously value American muscle. The deep rooted notion of the American dream is a hard thought to peel out of the national sentiment in hopes to encourage EV adoption.
A Fiat 500 can equally be part of the American dream!
Macroeconomic Changes
Beyond the need for economic and cultural sentiments to improve towards EV, there remain certain macroeconomic shortcomings that I suspect. Grid Overload issues as well as Critical Mineral shortages hinder the longevity and the scalability of EV adoption.
Grid Overload Issues
We have already noticed larger strain with higher RE share and higher capacity of intermittent energy supplies. When assessing the scalability of EV, there remains a greater propensity for electric load that the hardware nationally, and internationally, may be unable to handle. Therefore, infrastructural investments, beyond EV charging stations, is required to adequately support the rapid adoption of electric vehicles.
To run some numbers, as of now, the EV market shows low-moderate energy update rates. Through a series of models, if 80% of all commercial cars found themselves to be electric, it estimates that the total increase in electricity consumption would be 10-15%. Therefore, it remains safe to say that this issue isn’t immediate, nor is it an emergency to begin shifting for change now. More so, it remains a fair warning that should we make a transition, it is a good thing to keep in mind.
Furthermore, for example, in Germany, there remains no need to implement greater hardware support for EV growth until 2030. However, should the trend we see in EV uptake carry through to 2050, we would need about 20GW of additional capacity in the country.
Critical Mineral and Rare Earth Metal Shortage
Metals are the new oil as the new limiting factor in the EVolution (yes, I said EVolution and I’m proud of it). Minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel remain essential to encourage solar panel and electric car productions at a mass scale; however, as all good things are: they remain short in supply. We expect a 40x increase in lithium demand as well as a 25x increase in cobalt and nickel demand as we ride the EV revolution. So, the question remains, to what end do we demand these minerals and how can we increase the rate of finding these rare earth metals without hindering the carbon output during excavation.
Concluding Remarks
EV really excites me. I grew up obsessed with cars, where Top Gear was my go to show and F1 was the sport I cherished greatly (still do by the way!). Back in the day, the greatest change to the industry would be a new engine or the concept of Hypercars. The recent tide has shifted to EV, which definitely is the biggest transition in the industry - especially as EV is now starting to become comparable to the distance, speeds, and quality of cars that were traditionally petrol. I’m excited to see where the revolution of EV takes us; however, I remain cognizant of the shortcomings and difficulties the industry needs to navigate.