I think falling demand has a lot less to do with electric cars and more to do with the MPG in cars going up and people finally buying newer cars. Electric car penetration in the US is not high enough to have a massive impact, but MPGs going up and newer models of cars getting on the road can have a massive impact.
When it comes to electric vehicles, the question won't be oil, it will be the supply chain still being very polluting and China having a massive foothold on lithium supplies.
Two factors not clearly stated, but linked to, in the article:
- Electric buses, which have much higher usage than personal vehicles [1]
- China’s sustained and increasingly stronger push for EVs [2]
China is the largest land vehicles market in the world with 30% of global sales, so its moves have a large impact. [3]
When the initial sales prices of EVs become competitive with ICE cars without subsidy, it is likely that Chinese EV manufacturers will push hard to expand markets in developing countries where cost is a major concern. They should have a cost advantage over established global brands. The flip to electric, for new car sales, could be quite rapid then.
“The numbers are staggering. China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance.”
“The world’s biggest market for electric vehicles wants to get even bigger, so it’s giving automakers what amounts to an ultimatum. Starting in January, all major manufacturers operating in China—from global giants Toyota Motor and General Motors to domestic players BYD and BAIC Motor—have to meet minimum requirements there for producing new-energy vehicles, or NEVs (plug-in hybrids, pure-battery electrics, and fuel-cell autos). A complex government equation requires that a sizable portion of their production or imports must be green in 2019, with escalating goals thereafter.”
Soon you won't be able to sell many ICE personal vehicles in China. Huge taxes will be levied on them, or the big bosses there will ban them altogether. (I would put money on a ban. The Chinese government always did have a fondness for blunt instruments.)
In any case, it has now been confirmed that even companies like Ferrari and Maserati have electric vehicles in the works. Mainly with the Chinese market in mind, and targeted for 2020.
So yeah, if the largest market is intent on a wholesale switch to electric, then that's definitely gonna have a big impact.
I live in Shanghai and already have an electric vehicle ... it just isn't a car. I would estimate that almost 20% of the population already has electric scooters.
That being said I doubt they will get rid of them because that isn't really the way China works. For taxis, you really need an ICE at the moment. For delivery vehicle not so much. Every delivery vehicle that I've seen in cities is electric. The trucks between cities aren't but lots of the intercity deliveries are by train (some is electric some isn't).
One thing to be aware of is that China generally has tough laws that are not well enforced. This is by design. They don't have to change the law they just need to enforce it more strictly.
What generally happens is that the laws are introduced into the top tier cities and then slowly out to other cities over time. What they have been doing is increasing the emission requirements. This is to bring down pollution. We had an old jeep that we rented that had to be tested every 6 months because of its age. There was a loophole that let us pass the test. It cost a little bit more but we could drive it. The government knew about the loophole and let it exist for a few years then closed it. You knew it was coming just not when. I think the jeep was moved into the country or sold for scrap.
The emission requirements will just keep slowly going up. There will be way around the requirements (which they are aware of) but they will slowly make it harder and harder. If you really want an ICE it will still be possible but when you go for a new car it will just be less effort and easier to get electric.
This is why I have an electric moped. I could get a petrol one which would technically be illegal but it is just so much easier to get electric.
For taxis, you really need an ICE at the moment. For delivery vehicle not so much. Every delivery vehicle that I've seen in cities is electric.
Very interesting. Where I am in North America, nearly every taxi is electric, and I think I’ve seen two electric delivery vehicles in the last five years.
I wonder why our transportation is so very opposite.
Most local delivery is done using scooters (cheep) not cars(expensive).
There is so much online shopping that distribution centers are roughly every 10km so you go back to base get a load and a new battery. Same for food.
The difference is there isn't really a car charging network here like in the US. Most of the charging here is just using normal sockets or at home. I charge my batteries overnight twice a week. There are a number of charging points in the public garage but it is still slow charging.
So not good enough for a taxi going all over the city but good enough for delivery.
it's because he call electric tricycles vehicles, pretty much 95% of delivery vehicles in Chiba are electric tricycles, same go for dump trucks in bigger cities, they just don't user big vehicles (trucks/vans) but tricycles
Beijing already had more than a few EV taxis (BYD) in 2016, I heard Shenzhen was much more aggressive on this front. As far as charge times; these are taxi drivers who hangout a couple of hours at the airport for just one fare back, they probably queue up for chargers also.
Around three quarters, and all busses are electric.
The need for long charge time is not that big of an issues as drivers still have to do mandatory breaks, and show up at depots for cleaning at least once a day.
It doesn’t matter at all really, China isn’t exactly known for the productivity of their bus and taxi drivers. Productivity is often a distant secondary concern for service type jobs.
You’ll find taxi drivers chilling even in shanghai if it isn’t rush hour. Not to mention airport taxi queues, even when you can barely get a taxi st the airport, drivers are waiting 2+ hours to get through it. The authorities hardly consider their time important.
Both cities are such a chill place. I've been to both. Before Shenzhen, I worked in Shanghai on a half a year contract to bring a small webdev and marketing consultancy shop back from the dead after loss of a CTO.
But the moment I stepped out of the plane in Shenzhen, I felt it almost physically that the air there is different: public transport that runs like a clockwork, exemplary public sanitation, police in subway that actually does its job, all public services being largely well run, and ..... the most unchinese thing possible ... traffic laws actually being enforced, and very zealously at that
Traffic laws being enforced?!? Now that’s just crazy talk :).
Ok, I admit shanghai is much better than Beijing in this regard, heck most tier twos in the south are (think HZ, GZ, and even almost 3rd tier Kunming). I’ve never been to Shenzhen before, but I can believe it is very different from Beijing :).
Why levy high taxes on low mpg vehicles? Wouldn’t it make more sense to increase fuel taxes?
Who cares if someone has a massive SUV if they drive it 2 miles per day? It’s the 50 mile per day driver that you really want to discourage from buying a gas guzzler.
Sincerely, a dude that bikes to work 90% of the time unless the weather is particularly deplorable (or has a big load go bring home)
> Why levy high taxes on low mpg vehicles? Wouldn’t it make more sense to increase fuel taxes?
It makes sense to do both, because it's necessary to catch the average driver without pinching either end too hard.
It doesn't take much to convince the heaviest drivers to buy more efficient vehicles -- it may not even take anything, since the fuel savings is already thousands of dollars for them regardless of any taxes.
But they're still paying the fuel taxes even with the more efficient vehicle. Meanwhile the average driver would need a much higher fuel cost to convince them to buy the more efficient vehicle -- high enough that it would hammer the innocent heavy drivers who have already bought more efficient vehicles.
On the other hand, a combination of fuel tax and incentives for purchasing more efficient vehicles will convince the average driver to switch without putting too severe a burden on heavy drivers who have already done the right thing.
It's also generally not good to discourage productive usage. Better to get consumption from 100 gallons to 60 by going from 30MPG to 50 than by only being able to drive 1800 miles instead of 3000 and losing whatever value the extra 1200 miles of travel was worth.
And of course it would be the opposite if you tried to do it entirely through a fee on inefficient vehicles -- the amount required to convince the median driver on its own without a fuel tax would be too much burden for vehicles with light usage. Which is why you want a balance of both.
Huh, that's an interesting idea and I like it. It'll give people a visceral feeling of how much more expensive the inefficient vehicles will be to operate. Have this amount be printed prominently on the price sticker, and maybe consider increasing the distance. Depending on the country and inefficiency of the vehicle in question, the extra amount for pre-purchasing the fuel will only be low to high 3 digit dollars.
I actually think excise taxes on new vehicles is more effective since it forces people to put everything on the balance sheet when committing to buy. Makes sense because people don't commit to creating pollution/CO2 emissions when they fill their tank, they did it when they bought the car.
On the other end you can do what California is doing which is paying people a couple of grand towards a down payment if they replace an older ICE car with an electric car. Would be a good idea if the state would also identify and target longer distance commuters for buyouts.
Two negatives here. The first is that people rarely pay cash for a car, so unless you are levying a huge tax, it just rolls up into another $20/month. Significant over the long term, but not really an inducement to change behavior.
The second is that this turns into a form of environmental redlining. Poor folks who need a car get priced out of the new car market. They then get stuck in older, less efficient, and less safe vehicles. Mass transit may eventually fix this, but in most parts of the US you’d have to raze entire cities to get a working mass transit system.
I really don’t know how this is going to work out for personal vehicles just given a lack of personal parking spaces. On any given night, the roads are filled with illegally parked cars (turning a 4 lane street into a 2 lane one), let alone parked in a space with access to a charger. It only works out for e-bikes because you carry the battery up to your flat for charging.
Most of the personal EVs I saw in Beijing were Teslas; because if you were rich enough to have a private parking space, you were looking for an Audi replacement, not an economy one.
> I really don’t know how this is going to work out for personal vehicles just given a lack of personal parking spaces.
It probably won't work. Or, come to think of it, it will sort of work as it will force the "poorer" people (those who can't afford a dedicated parking space with access to a charger) to sell their ICE cars and revert to using public transport, so you'd only have "richer" people driving their EV cars. A similar thing is now happening in cities like Paris, where recent rules forbid the use of older diesel cars, which has in fact meant that people who had moved out in the banlieues for cheaper rent while still working in downtown Paris have had to go back to using public transport, which out in the banlieues is not that reliable compared to the downtown area. That means that those "poorer" people now have issues arriving at time to work or picking up their kids from school. Regressive taxes and bans are bad.
I wonder how much is due to people driving less. Totally anecdotal, but thanks to remote work, I've barely had a commute nor needed a car since 2012. I was barely ever driving, and I finally sold my car this spring and have been much happier without it. It seems that my lifestyle is trending, so maybe that's having an impact.
I doubt there's a big impact there for a variety of reasons.
- A lot of people who work remotely still need/want cars. In fact, I'd speculate that one reason a lot of people are drawn to remote work is precisely so they don't need to live in expensive, crowded locations.
- Remote work is still a fairly small slice.
- In many cases, people who commute are commuting further/longer, in part because of housing prices in elite cities.
I'm not sure how typical you are. Even though I mostly work remotely, I still drive a fair bit for recreational activities even aside from running local errands (which, in my case, I can't really do without a car).
> A lot of people who work remotely still need/want cars
I work remotely and my wife and I have two cars. We do significantly less miles than when I worked in an office. Often our gas car sits in the garage for 2-3 days unused.
This is because we try to do as many electric miles as we can.
I work mostly remotely and I drive fewer miles as well as a result—which is probably typical of most who work mostly or solely remote. But it in no ways affects my need to own a car. Though the car will presumably last longer as a result.
And unfortunately changing cars too often has a significant environmental cost. I think making of the car has as much as 50% of its average life-time carbon footprint. So buying a newer car may be increasing the MPG, but brings in a huge upfront environmental cost.
Producing a gas vehicle is equivalent to two years of average driving as far as carbon footprint is concerned, according to this one guy on YouTube (https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM)
But your aren't throwing away the old car when you upgrade. It goes on the used market and someone who has an even less efficient car buys it. Someone who probably can't afford a brand new maximally efficient car.
Its a lot smaller than 50% but if the improvement is minimal then you might never offset the production emissions but if you are switching to an electric car it only takes about 2 years depending on the car and your location.
Most manufacturers haven't admitted to BSing the MPG tests. You're probably thinking of the widespread cheating on the pollution emissions tests, which was a separate problem.
When it comes to electric vehicles, the question won't be oil, it will be the supply chain still being very polluting and China having a massive foothold on lithium supplies.