At least as a minor contributor and maybe more, I think electric cars are going to be a permanent feature of the transport landscape in New Zealand. Electric cars are certainly more credible than more esoteric options such as hydrogen power and fuel cells. The interesting issue is whether they become more than that in the long term – whether they can become a dominating factor in the personal and commercial transport market.
Subsidies
The Government is certainly interested in an electric car future as they are subsidising some elements of their introduction. However, subsidies are a double edged sword – they can be effective in starting new ideas up but if they cannot stand on their own in the long term, then the ideas die when the subsidies die. That has happened with other alternative energy forms in the past – who now remembers CNG as a fuel, except in some specialist applications?
Subsidies are also only economic when the market is small. In transport it is important to consider what would happen with the disappearance of the current transport taxes on petroleum and the huge revenue they drag in.
The influence of petrol and diesel
The largest practical obstacle to future dominance of electric cars is the entrenched dominance of the petrol/diesel driven internal combustion engine as the preferred means of personal transport. There are powerful reasons for this dominance:
• First, it is a part of our culture, at least for New Zealanders of middle age and beyond. That might change with a young generation emerging that lives in a virtual, digital world, sees transport purely as a means to an end and has no real interest in car ownership. However, we are talking intergenerational shifts here.
• For all their technical sophistication, modern internal combustion engines are wonders of reliability and versatility and just go and go. You just turn on and drive.
• The fuel distribution system is also easy to access and totally reliable with multiple redundancies built in. Even in the dark days of the 1970s oil crises, New Zealand never really looked like running out of fuel – even though we were at the extreme end of the supply chain – and devices like carless days were a safety net not a necessity
• But the punch line is the fuel itself – vey high energy density (lots of punch per pound) and very easy to store – just pour it into a tank.
For all of the above the electric car has a lot going for it, in particular:
• Electric motors are simple and reliable and date back at least as far as the internal combustion engine
• Battery performance permitting, the performance characteristics of electric motors are the equal of the internal combustion engine – no problems with acceleration or speed
• We already have a distribution system for electricity, although at present it lacks fueling points for electric cars – but that will come.
Elephants in the room
• Battery storage – batteries are heavy and still lack the energy density of petroleum fuel. This is fine for around town motoring but not for longer journeys. I think human ingenuity will eventually fix this and there have already been huge strides with battery technology.
• Distribution reliability – the electricity distribution system has a long way to go to match the reliability of the petroleum fuel system – loss of electricity supply is something that happens reasonably frequently but when was the last time we ran out of petrol? Again this is a problem which can be fixed, eg with energy storage systems and greater redundancy in the lines system, but the costs will be high as will public expectations.
But the major elephant in the room is future electricity supply. If electric cars become a dominant part of the transport market they will very substantially increase the demand for power and that will likely come at a time when power demand is increasing anyway through factors such as economic and population growth. The situation is supportable so long as we keep finding reserves of natural gas (which is a very easy and clean fossil fuel) and are prepared to use it in power generation.
But if we turn our faces against fossil fuels in even their cleanest form there are some real problems ahead. With the possible exception of geothermal, renewables will struggle to meet the future demand and at reasonable cost.
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This is another of Bas Walker’s posts on GrownUps. Please look out for his articles, containing his Beachside Ponderings.