Today's News by Jack Nerad for Driving Today

Seeing the Big Picture EV-wise

Friday, February 12, 2010

The burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) industry cannot be understood by simply looking at cars.

The complete market is, and will remain, about double the market for cars, according to a new report from market research firm IDTechEx.

EV leaders, such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan, make electric vehicles for many applications, and many of them also control the manufacture of the component that most affects price and performance: the battery. For example, Nissan has a major program to put next-generation lithium batteries from its battery joint venture into its forklifts as well as its cars. Toyota makes heavy and light industrial EVs -- from forklifts to buses and mobility for the disabled -- not just electric cars. Much is written about hybrid cars, but hybrid military trucks, buses and even motorcycles are now selling frequently.

A new report on the subject, Electric Vehicles 2010-2020, includes chapters on heavy industrial, light industrial and commercial, mobility for the disabled, two-wheelers, golf cars, cars, as well as military, marine and other vehicles. The study even extends to electric mobile robots, surveillance jellyfish and other autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), bats and electric aircrafts.

IDTechEx does not make the common mistake of reporting primarily on vehicles from the well-known Western and Japanese manufacturers. Instead, it asserts that 66 percent of the manufacturers of electric vehicles in the world are in China, and over 90 percent of the world's electric vehicles are made in China, mainly for internal use. The Asian country has the largest potential market for electric vehicles, largely because of its big population. It also mines and controls 95 percent of the world’s rare earth reserves used in hybrid car batteries, motors and other key components of today’s electric vehicles. (By the way, China is also the largest market in the world for Chinese food.) 

Globally, the electric vehicle industry will continue to exhibit strong growth for the next decade, according to the company’s findings, although some sectors were impacted by the global financial meltdown and have yet to fully recover. The 29 million EVs sold in 2010 will rise 69 percent, to 49 million, in 2020, but the value of the market will grow far more because larger and more expensive vehicles are now rapidly adopting the technology. Motorcycles, military vehicles, buses and earthmovers are among them. Hybrids will rise from about 50 percent to about 60 percent of the value market through the decade.

In 10 years from now, a far higher percentage of the global output of light industrial vehicles, commercial vehicles and cars will be EVs.

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