A couple of weeks ago, Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) released their Electric Vehicles (EV) report, which forms part of their transportation series [1]. The report is based upon scenario analysis of achieving a 100% EV fleet in Australia, powered by 100% renewable energy (as in their stationary power plan [2]). This is a worthy goal, as not only do transport emissions account for 6% of Australia’s total, but they are the most rapidly growing category [1]. There are two scenarios, low cost and high cost. The high cost scenario is 25% more expensive than Business as Usual (BAU), and the low cost is the same as BAU. The key differences between the scenarios are:
Battery tech – improvements in battery tech will improve the quality and range of EVs, as well as making them cheaper (batteries are the largest cost component of EVs)
Maintenance costs – The BZE report assumes batteries need to be replaced after 10 years. This is a significant maintenance cost associated with EVs, as the electric motors etc do not require as much maintenance as an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) based car.
Petrol prices – High petrol prices drive up the operating costs of ICE based cars.
The first two, battery tech and maintenance costs, will decrease with the number of EVs sold (and therefore R&D). The main thing is, that I don’t think we can rely upon high petrol prices to encourage EV uptake. Predicting oil prices is a difficult thing in any case, but it is not clear that they are going to go back up to 2013 levels any time soon [3]. Therefore, we must ask ourselves, what can we rely on?
I think the key lies in combining transport policy with other kinds of public policy in order to achieve reliable outcomes. It’s not enough to focus on the cost; We must also consider the benefits to other sectors and the savings that can be achieved there.
Average age of motor vehicles in Australia is 10.1 years [4], meaning that policy can focus primarily on new vehicles and infrastructure, and still achieve a transition in an acceptable time-frame. Therefore, the key is providing appropriate infrastructure, and incentives for the purchase of EVs. The report identifies three main barriers: lack of awareness, perceived range anxiety, and a perceived high upfront cost. I think these barriers are fairly short term, which appropriate to the time-frame of the report (10 years), but neglect the main part of the transition that needs to take place.
A large part of the potential cost savings come from removal of redundant parts of the Australian urban car fleet (see graph below). This results from both decreased expenditures on cars themselves, and decreased infrastructure costs (in the long run, investments in charging infrastructure will need to be made in the short run). This redundancy removal is achieved through ride sharing, and Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). The low maintenance costs of EVs make them an attractive choice for ride sharing and taxi companies like Uber (which has previously signalled its intent to move to a completely AV fleet).
At the end of the day, it’s about decoupling the use of vehicles with their ownership. Australian cities are built around the car, and I don’t think that’s about to change anytime soon, but our relationship with car ownership can. Currently, Australians are generally expected to own a car, but this doesn’t have to be the case, and therein lies the real potential for EVs.
EV fleet make up projection. Figure taken from reference 1.
Acronyms
AV – Autonomous Vehicle
BZE – Beyond Zero Emissions
EV – Electric Vehicle
BAU – Business as Usual
ICE – Internal Combustion Engine
References
- Beyond Zero Emissions. Electric Vehicles. (2016). at <http://media.bze.org.au/ev/bze_ev_report.pdf>
- Beyond Zero Emissions. Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan. (2010). at <http://media.bze.org.au/ZCA2020_Stationary_Energy_Report_v1.pdf>
- Aguilera, R. F. & Radetzki, M. The Price of Oil. (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
- Australian Bureau of Statistics. 9309.0 - Motor Vehicle Census, Australia, 31 Jan 2016. (2016). at <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9309.0>