2020 perceptions: Chachacha changing, or not?
Californacation?
Ohh soooo LA
So far this summer, I’ve driven through about 10 states, happily noticing many hybrid cars along the way, even in so-called ‘red states’. Whether it’s a green statement, or a statement against foreign oil, hybrid fans are everywhere.
Of course, in LA there are moments when, judging by all the hybrids, one might believe that real automotive change has already happened, but the facts simply don’t support such a perception.
Perceptual reality
Last night my niece was watching Legally Blond, and as I watched a few minutes of the movie, I thought about how much such shows shape the perceptions many people have of Angelenos. ‘Like, hey dude. Let’s have some sushi and buy some Versace for Freddy the chihuahua.’
But that’s oh so West LA.
On the other hand, I was at party Saturday night in Glassel Park, an East LA neighborhood, (although it’s not really East LA), where one of my friends was showing off his new truck, a giant Ford F250.
“Why such a big truck,” someone asked?
“I just like big trucks.”
“What about gas prices,” another asked?
“I don’t care,” he responded. “I’ll worry about that when it becomes a problem.”
Certainly, there are times, especially in some LA neighborhoods, when it seems like everyone in LA drives a hybrid, but if you really stop and look around, hybrids are everywhere, but still only in small percentages overall. BMWs, for instance, are still much more common. Similarly, in the parking lot of the party I attended Saturday, where a few hundred guests showed up, I only noticed one hybrid. Mine.
Yet, in the next decade, hybrid adoption has been predicted to increase from less than 3 percent today, to over 20 percent in 2020. How? Why?
It seems most automakers can easily achieve upcoming CAFE regulations without adding much new hybrid technology, especially when methodologies for determining fuel economy are so skewed towards highway fuel economy. Porsche, the most impacted automaker in terms of CAFE for example, believes that just 15 percent hybrid is enough to make their gas-guzzling fleet achieve CAFE requirements.
So, what forces 20 or even 25 percent? New regulations? Much higher gas prices? Lithium? All of the above?
Many automakers, for instance, don’t seem to agree with such bullish hybrid forecasts. Instead of a real effort into hybrids, Nissan for instance, seems more content with trying to achieve 10 percent EV penetration, while Chrysler seems focused on conventional, although Euro-styled, compact and micro-cars. Similarly, GM’s continued focus on mild hybrids seems just as hybrid-doubtful, and even after a decade of hybrid sales, Honda seems uncertain if not totally confused.
Of course, hot kid on the block, Hyundai is more in line with hybrid-bullish Toyota and Ford.
Yet, if automakers, powertrain forecasters, battery analysts, energy hawks and policy-makers are studying the same data, why are the forecasts and favored technologies still so diverse?
It seems numerous breakthroughs across many different technologies could force automakers to almost instantly make major changes to their lineups and to their long term plans. Calling Heisenberg!
Inevitably, great change is coming, possibly even sooner than expected. That change, however, probably won’t end up looking anything like being predicted today. Consequently, if there is a skill that seems essential for automakers heading into the future, it seems to be nimbleness. Unfortunately, that skill is lacking throughout the entire auto industry.
Until such breakthroughs, marketing – perception – seems to be automakers’ favored technology.
As for me, I’m heading out for an Unagi roll and then on to Rodeo Drive. My dog needs a new collar.
I agree that we’ll hit closer to the lower end. Yet, I don’t think it has to be that way, even if gas prices don’t increase much.
Tom G. responds:
I would hope it would be higher, much higher but several things must happen first.
1. Fuels cost must necessarily increase. If we continue to have cheap fuel then the percentage will be less.
2. We will also need skilled and believable leadership. The American people will follow someone who can explain the need in terms they can understand and believe in. Leaders who flip-flow are not the type of leaders the American people will follow, and 3;
3. A strategy. Our current batch of government officials are from academia. College professor are needed but not in government. Effective government required individuals with a variety of backgrounds. If you focus on educations and/or anecdotal information all day and never do something with your hands, you loose touch with your customers [the people]. If you focus on engineering [like me] everything might just end up overbuilt, LOL A variety of individuals builds synergies and consensus which seem to work better. Think back over your own careers and remember when things were going really well. Was it just one personality type or was it a variety of people that brought out the best of your abilities?
The last team of mixed talent I was on saved $1.35 million in just 4 weeks by finding smarter way to conduct business and no one lost their jobs.
So higher or lower market presentation? I don’t believe given our current strategies and leadership we will even make the minimum projected percentage. I would love however to be proven wrong.
I pretty much agree, Daniel.
Yet, what that really means is that by 2020, not much has changed. Even worse, thanks to the legacy effect of the older technologies in America’s several hundred million fleet of vehicles, it will still be several decades before any real change is possible.
I think a more realistic goal of 10 percent hybrid and 3 percent EV’s by 2020 sounds right on trace to me!
And these are good stories, but these are still corporations seeking money at a time when there is money on the table. So forward sounding statements are part of the business. Much of this is still “potential”. Likewise, from what I read in other stories, the primary focus in the interim is grid storage applications.
I have no doubt that battery technologies will evolve and become cost-effective, at least relative to today’s technologies. Unfortunately, the process could take decades. Even more interesting, there are other technologies that might be just as green as battery technologies, but cheaper, that also evolve over the next decade. Ultimately, technology will rule.
Still, do you think things will be vastly different by 2020? Will American new cars be 10 percent EV and 25 percent hybrid – the high end of the predictions – by 2020? Higher? Lower?
And so the story goes; technology rules; gas guzzlers drool. This was published this a.m.
New Battery for Cheap Electric Vehicles
Founder of A123 Systems starts a new company to commercialize the technology.
By Kevin Bullis, MIT Technology Review
A new startup company will attempt to solve the biggest roadblock facing electric vehicles today–the cost of their batteries. Battery pioneer: Yet-Ming Chiang has a new battery design that could make electric vehicles much cheaper. The new company, called 24M, has been spun out of the advanced battery company A123 Systems. It will develop a novel type of battery based on research conducted by Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science at MIT and founder of A123 Systems. He says the battery design has the potential to cut those costs by 85 percent.
The full story is available here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26023/