and modernized transmission system. And then, when it gets to dense urban areas, the electricity will be managed by a smart grid that will move it through the distribution system, into the household or the charging station, and finally it will be fed into the battery of an electric car. Some even take the vision further and imagine that cars will act as storage systems, “roving” batteries, which, when idle, will feed electricity back into the grid.
But that is quite different from the electric system that exists today in which renewables provide less than 2 percent of the power. Lee Schipper, a professor at Stanford University, argues that many EVs will become what he dubs EEVs—“emissions elsewhere vehicles.” That is, the emissions and greenhouse gases associated with transportation will not come out of the tailpipe of the car but potentially from the smokestack of a coal-fired power plant that generates the electricity that is fed into the EV. So one also has to take into account how the power is generated. Is it uranium or coal or wind? Or something else? Will it be natural gas, with about half the CO2 emissions of coal and now a much more abundant fuel because of the breakthrough on shale gas worldwide? This last prospect also provides an alternative to burning natural gas in engines as a mass-market fuel. Natural gas would in effect become a motor fuel, but indirectly, by generating more of the electricity that ends up in the battery of an electric car.18
How fast can an electric-vehicle future happen? On a global basis, estimates for new-car sales in 2030 of EVs and PHEVs, depending upon the scenario, range between 10 percent and 32 percent of total annual sales. Under the most optimistic of the scenarios, the penetration of such vehicles (in other words, the total number of EVs and PHEVs in the global fleet) would be 14 percent.19
The policies of governments will be one of the critical determinants in the actual outcome. For it is such policies—regulations, incentives, and subsidies—that today are promoting the development of the electric car and on which the current economics depend. Innovation could change that calculus and drive down costs, just as Henry Ford did with the Model T. That is one of the primary arguments for the policies and incentives and subsidies: they are meant to stimulate greater scale and significant cost-cutting innovation. One critical question, therefore, is how stable will be those policies that are now aimed at making electricity the mainstay of the auto fleet? After all, energy policies have shown the recurrent characteristic of being “pendulumatic,” moving in one direction and then another, and then back again.
“THERMAL RUNAWAY”?
EVs are already in production and in the marketplace. But as a product for a mass market, it remains a great experiment with big hurdles still to be surmounted.
Batteries still need to be smaller, weigh less, charge more quickly, and be able to last much longer on a single charge. They also need to prove that they can be long lived, despite the continuing charging and discharging. It will have to be demonstrated that problems like “thermal runaway”—destructive overheating—do not occur. In addition to propelling the vehicle, batteries also need sufficient capacity to power all the other accoutrements that drivers expect, from power steering and air-conditioning to the traveling entertainment center. And the cost needs to come down substantially—unless governments are willing and capable of providing continuing subsidies on a very large scale.20
Batteries are now a focus of intense and well-funded research around the world, aimed at addressing these questions. The entire effort is also very competitive—indeed, a global “battery race.” At the same time, there is a global debate as to where the “learning curve” battery technology is and how fast it can come down.
Infrastructure is the second challenge. Today’s automobile system could not operate without the dense network of gasoline stations built up over so many decades. A large fleet of electric cars will need a similar network of charging stations. One car in a neighborhood can be easily accommodated with an extension cord. But what happens to the transformers in the power system when everybody on the block, and on the next block, and on the next three blocks decides to recharge at the same time?21
Moreover, it is necessary to get beyond the “hand raisers”—those who put their names in the order book prior to the release of a model—and the early adopters. In the 1990s General Motors “subsidized the hell