The electrification of personal and public transport has gathered pace in recent years. Newly electrified urban bus networks are popping up in towns and cities around the world. International Energy Agency (IEA) figures show sales of electric cars tripled between 2020 and 2022 with this year expected to represent a continuation of exponential growth.
There is, however, still some way to go before traditional petrol and hybrid vehicle sales are overtaken by electric car sales, which are expected to account for 1 in 5 new cars bought in 2023. It is expected to take another 10-15 years for fully electric vehicle sales to overtake those of vehicles with combustion engines.
Global electric car sales
Source: International Energy Agency (IEA)
The biggest bottleneck to electric car sales is still range. That was also the original problem and why gasoline-powered vehicles replaced early electric cars and carriages in the late 19th and early 20th. At that time, fleets or battery-powered taxis and electric carriages could be seen rattling around the centres of the world’s biggest and metropolitan cities like London and New York.
They ferried passengers through the urban environments of a 125 years ago alongside the horse-drawn carriages and carts that were still the main form of transport. At the end of the 19th century there were 30,000 electric vehicles registered in the USA.
But the greater convenience and flexibility of the gasoline engine broke reliance on still limited and unreliable electric power infrastructure mainly confined to large and wealthier towns and cities. Car owners could travel much further before having to refuel, which took minutes.
Over a century later, combustion engines completely dominated transport technology for most of the same reasons. One change is that electric infrastructure that serves almost every corner of the planet inhabited by humans is now taken for granted. But battery-powered vehicles still have more limited ranges than petrol-powered alternatives and still take hours to fully recharge.
And while there is electric infrastructure almost anywhere a car would be expected to go, there are still not always suitable charging points conveniently available. These networks are growing quickly. But it will still take years for them to reach the level required to keep a majority electric national car fleet running smoothly.
And it still takes about 8 hours to charge a typical (60kWh battery) electric car battery from empty-to-full from a standard 7kW charging point. About 100 miles of range can be added in just over half an hour by topping up most electric cars with a 50kW rapid charger but range is still an issue for longer journeys.
Today’s electric cars are a viable choice for most day-to-day personal transport needs. But they are still unlikely to tempt anyone who occasionally needs to make longer cross-country trips or spends a lot of the day travelling. This is why it is becoming increasingly common for multi-car families buying a new car to opt for fully electric. But with the safety net of a combustion engine alternative to cover needs when a longer range is required.
Policy more than technology has spurred investment in battery tech but it is bearing fruit
Transport’s electric renaissance has been driven more by international government policy informed by climate change and energy security concerns than the need for technical innovation. Their concentration enabling convenient, cheap transport and logistics makes fossil fuels a very efficient energy source.
But the era of fossil fuel-powered mass transport has made a big contribution to global warming and led to increasingly poor air quality in urban centres endangering the health of inhabitants. And geopolitical risk is a concern, as highlighted by recent events around Russia, one of the world’s biggest exporters of oil and gas.
Electrification of transport will make a big improvement on both fronts, which is why governments have been so keen to encourage the transition from combustion engines. And governments are applying the stick as well as a carrot to automakers. The UK has announced a ban on new petrol engine car and van sales from 2030 and hybrids will be outlawed 5 years later.
With other developed economies around the world also setting deadlines for the phasing out of petrol engine vehicles, their end is nigh. As a result, automakers and other investors have poured huge resources into the research and development of new, improved battery technology. Establishing an edge in battery power, performance, durability and charge speed is worth billions. Falling behind could easily mean corporate oblivion or, at the very least, represent a significant setback in competitiveness.
Recent battery technology breakthroughs promise a solution to the EV range problem within a decade
The level of investment in battery technology that the race against time imposed by policy has spurred is, however, bearing fruit. EV ranges are improving and charging times shortening. Last year an electric car, a Mercedes Vision EQXX, travelled over 1000 kilometres on a single charge for the first time.
Both Volkswagen and Toyota have officially announced timelines for the start of mass production of the kind of next-generation batteries that will give standard EVs a similar range.
1000 kilometres is around twice what most cars can travel on a single tank of fuel and almost negates the range limitation downside of today’s EVs. There aren’t many scenarios in which 1000 kilometres would ever be driven without the length of break for the driver that would allow for a convenient recharge.
Money and research is also being poured into drastically reducing charging times. British engineering firm CALLUM and Cambridge-based battery developer Nyobolt have a joint venture they are confident will result in recharging times of under 10 minutes. That would almost completely eradicate the current strengths of traditional combustion engines over electric.
Production of the next-generation lithium-ion battery the joint venture is developing to make that possible is scheduled to begin in 2024.
It’s not just cars – improving battery density means aircraft and ships have an electric future too
Small electric aircraft with ranges that make them convenient as inter-city commuter vehicles, or a fast route from an airport to city centre and back, are already a reality, if not in widespread commercial use yet. But that is only a matter of time.
Last year, the Israeli electric planes start-up Eviation completed the first flight of an electric commuter plane able to transport nine passengers and their luggage, or a tonne of cargo. The Alice aircraft is now considered the first battery-powered plane viable for short-haul commercial journeys up to 645km (400 miles).
Two US-based airlines have already ordered 125 of the fully electric Alice planes and logistics companies including DHL are showing strong interest.
Battery range has again been the main limiting factor dragging on the electrification of commercial flight. Longer distance journeys require batteries with an energy density of at least 500Wh/kg, which is about twice that of the newest Tesla batteries.
Japanese researchers have now achieved that with a new lithium-air battery design. There are still hurdles to be overcome on the road to the mass commercialisation of that breakthrough battery technology. But it is now clear it is possible in the relatively near term and most of us alive today will see electric jet planes carrying hundreds of passengers between continents become the norm.
Developing batteries powerful enough to electrify shipping is an even greater challenge but will also be overcome in the not too distant future. With cargo ships contributing 2%-3% of total greenhouse gas emissions that will also have an impact on climate targets and is being encouraged.
R&D in shipping electrification is being driven by huge companies with huge logistics networks – and costs. Battery-powered cargo ships would also, crucially, be cheaper to run. The problem is that building them is still hugely expensive – 2 to 3 times more costly than building a standard cargo ship, meaning electric alternatives are still not commercially viable.
But Amazon and Ikea have committed to achieving zero-carbon shipping by 2040 and R&D is being invested in to make those ambitions a reality. One prototype technology is based on huge batteries stored in shipping containers that can be switched out for fully charged new containers while a ship is docked at port.
However, the current pace of development in battery technology means it is likely there will be more convenient options for shipping too in the not-too-distant future.
Energy storage technology has always lagged behind other areas of technological progress, creating a bottleneck. It’s now starting to catch up and the transport sector will see the first big transformation to result as the vehicles that carry us across land, sea and air turn electric.