Cleaning up transport: Electrifying the vehicle fleet
Motor vehicles, traditionally powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) using petrol or diesel, are responsible for about 20% of global greenhouse emissions and are a major factor in urban air pollution.
Cleaning up these impacts at the source, ie. by designing and marketing emission-free vehicles, is a critical component of the 21st century urban mobility transition.
Electric vehicles (EVs) were originally co-developed with ICE vehicles in the late 19th century but fell behind as ICE technology improved more rapidly, enabling petrol-powered cars to become cheaper and more user-friendly in the emerging mass market. This discrepancy was particularly due to the slow pace of battery technology development during the 20th century, severely constraining EVs’ performance and cost competitiveness.
With the commercialisation of lithium-ion batteries during the 2010s, this situation changed: the cost, weight and energy density of batteries have now improved so drastically that EVs, at least in the automobile-sized category, can make inroads into the market of their ICE counterparts, supported by public policy that seeks to accelerate the transition:
‘The price tipping point for small EVs will likely be sometime in the 2020s as battery costs continue to drop and vehicle efficiency and greenhouse gas standards in China, Europe, and the United States start to push automakers beyond gasoline and diesel.’(Sperling, 2018, p23)
The role of public agencies
‘The solution is for electric utilities to adopt new rate structures to accommodate and support the introduction of EVs. It is in their interest to do so because EV charging provides them a mechanism for managing their electricity loads more easily and cheaply. The new, more desirable approach will be to incentivise EV charging during times when demand is otherwise low, thereby allowing utilities to flatten the demand peak and spread the cost of their power plants and infrastructure over a larger base. If they can manage precisely when EVs are charged (…) they can treat the EVs as a massive storage pool.’(Sperling, 2018, p42-43)
By 2030, revenues from petrol taxes will be lost or reduced significantly with the shift from individual ownership of internal combustion engines to shared electric vehicle fleets. Governments whose budgets rely on this revenue could shift to road pricing and taxing of kilometres rather than fuels.(Dia, 2019, p93)
References
- Dia H (2019) Rethinking urban mobility: Unlocking the benefits of vehicle electrification. Chapter 5 in Newton P, Prasad D, Sproul A, White S (eds). Decarbonising the Built Environment. Charting the Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, pp 83-98.
- Iveson K (2021) Cramming cities full of electric vehicles means we’re still dependent on cars – and that’s a huge problem. The Conversation, 24 June
- Newman P (2022) Beyond electric cars: how electrifying trucks, buses, tractors and scooters will help tackle climate change. The Conversation, 3 May
- Sperling D (2018, ed) Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future. Island Press, Washington (DC).
Web resources
- Energy and environmental policy trends: The accelerating pace of electric vehicle adoption. The University of Calgary
Can the evolution of transportation slow global warming? We explore this question in the next step.
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