Week review

Congratulations! You have reached the end of the fourth and last week.

Here are the key ideas that you should retain from this week:

• The current electric vehicle market is fast-growing and prices are expected to drop. Currently, the market is led by China, which is larger than the US and European market together. The largest players are still LG, SDI, Panasonic and CATL. Europe is slowly catching up with mostly Norway and Germany leading the way. While at the moment electric cars are still expensive compared to combustion cars, this is expected to change in the next 5 years. One of the key influencers on the price and thus the price development is the battery, accounting for roughly 43% of the price of an electric car. The battery prices are expected to drop, for the more developed car producers, by roughly 8% per year, and for the newer car producers, by roughly 12% per year. This price drop will primarily result from large production volumes but also from the recycling of material or cheaper prime materials,

• With a growing electric vehicle market, charging infrastructure is a crucial factor to success. Currently, there are charging stations at home facilities, at work, and a few charging stations in Europe. The types of charging consist of Type 1: 3.5 kW, Type 2: 3.5-22 kW, AC fast charging, up to 43 kW and AC rapid charging or Tesla supercharging, up to 150 kW. The charging power is expected to increase further with major players already announcing to deliver new fast-charging stations in Europe. Except for the different players involved in establishing this charging infrastructure, such as Tesla and Ionity, it is important that the electricity grid is strong enough to facilitate a large number of charging stations. And lastly, the big question is what the price model will be!

• New business models emerge for electric vehicles. Stationary storage is already used, and batteries are going to be widely used for these systems. Electricity can be stored when it is cheap or even at a negative price, and then it can be delivered when prices are higher. This is an existing business model. Coming to electric vehicles, the battery of an electric car will reach a stage when it is not performant enough anymore for its’ original application. Instead of disposing of this battery, it can be used successfully in another application, specifically as a home stationary storage system. Or the electric car itself can be used as a stationary battery to offer services to the grid, a business model known as Vehicle-to-Grid. Lastly, Vehicle-to-Home is a business model where a car battery can be used as the primary energy source for a home, while still being connected to the grid.