I don’t tend to make opinion videos. In fact, I try to keep opinion out of my regular videos
as much as possible so you can make up your mind, which is how I like my news reporting.
But when I’ve been mulling over something car related in my brain, I like to make a video to
discuss it. You may not agree with what I have to say, in fact I’d be surprised if you did, but
hopefully I can bring up some points you aren’t aware of and push the debate a little further.
And of course I’m not saying I’m right. We’ll find out in the fullness of time who’s right.
So, let’s discuss if EVs can make the shift to widescale adoption,
or are they doomed to become a niche product?
[music]
When the automobile first burst on the scene
at the end of the 19th century it was little more than a novelty. It would break down all the time,
and good luck getting petrol. Carl Benz’s wife resorted to visiting a chemist to continue her
journey because there weren’t any petrol stations of course. Tarmac roads weren’t a
thing – cars had to survive on dirt tracks that were used by horse drawn carts. Why would you
give up your horse for something like that? Yet give them up they did. The 20th century
became the century that saw the almost total domination of the automobile precisely because
it got better and better. The car didn’t need the same care and attention a horse needed. It
could go faster for longer, you didn’t get wet, and you could carry three or more passengers.
I think we have a similar problem with Electric Vehicles. If you’re not familiar there’s a thing
called the “technology adoption life cycle curve”, that’s a lot of words! But anyway,
the x axis is time and the y axis is the number of people in each group. Let’s apply it to the
automobile. When it first came out it was adopted by people who could risk the money on buying one,
but were also what this graph calls “innovators”. That’s people who were excited by this new
technology and really wanted to use it. As the car got better and less expensive
more people adopted it – what this graph calls “Early Adopters”. They weren’t as excited about
the car as the “innovators”, but were still enthusiastic to own one. As the car became
more and more practical it was owned by the “Early Majority”, then the “Late Majority”,
and finally the “Laggards”. These people may be ones who don’t like a car at all,
but need to own one by necessity because it’s the only way they can get around. Maybe if a
horse was still something people owned to get around town, they’d prefer to do just that.
Many products go down this path, TVs, VCRs, smartphones, but in each case it’s a product
that most people wanted to own, not something they were forced to buy. Even the “Late Majority” saw
the advantage of owning a VCR – it allowed them to watch films at their own convenience
for much less than going to a cinema. Some people think the Electric Vehicle
will follow the same technology adoption life cycle, but this isn’t a given. Remember 3D TVs?
Some “innovators” and even “early adopters” bought them, but most people rejected them
and most TVs today are 2D. 3D TVs have all but disappeared, but some products get a following,
but aren’t owned by everyone, like motorcycles. The big question is, will EVs follow this
curve – will they replace internal combustion engine vehicles? Proponents certainly hope so,
and Governments are putting in incentives to encourage this to happen. That’s the carrot,
but there’s also a stick – some States and Governments have announced they’ll ban internal
combustion engine cars by a certain date. That’s done with good intentions – they want curb carbon
emissions – but it’s forcing people to take on a product they’re ambivalent to it at best,
and at worst hostile. That’s not a good way to get the “Late Majority” or “Laggards” to
adopt a new product. And those people vote, which means politicians could quickly change their mind.
What Governments are hoping for of course is that car companies will work out how to make
electric vehicles so enticing that people will flock to them. That’s so far not been the case.
The first exciting EV, the Tesla Roadster launched way back in 2008, what, 16 years ago? Yes, it had
quick acceleration, and newer models have come down in price, but they’re still more expensive
than the equivalent internal combustion car. That may not be the case for long though.
Battery prices peaked in 2021 as every man and his dog started buying up batteries for their
new range of EVs. Demand for these electric vehicles hasn’t been as good as people hoped,
and at the same time the supply chain has caught up with demand. Mineral mining and
battery production continues to ramp up to the point that the cost of batteries in an EV may
not be a significant cost in the next 5 - 10 years. But then there’s range anxiety – can my batteries
make it to my destination, or do I need to start hunting around for a charger? How often
will I need to sit charging if I’m using my car all day long? Chargers today can be slow,
busy or broken. That’s not something I’ve had to worry about with petrol stations.
Now, I’m an EV owner and I’m well aware of the advantages of charging at home. In fact,
for me an EV is better than an internal combustion car because I never need to stop to fill it up,
it’s always full when I take it out of my garage. But there are many people in that
“Early Majority” and “Late Majority” category that don’t have that luxury. They park at the
side of a road or in a car park that doesn’t have charging. That may change, but it’s a massive
infrastructure build-out, and there’s no sign it’s going to happen by Governments deadlines
for banning internal combustion engine cars. In a previous video I talked about EV adoption
and made a case for plug-in hybrids to span this infrastructure gap. You left some very interesting
comments – yes, I read every one of them – and one of the main problems with plug-in hybrids today
is that the people who own them just don’t plug them in, because it’s not worth getting
an extra 20-40 miles (30-60 km) of range. They’re also the worst of both worlds – you’re carrying
around both an engine, a motor and batteries. That’s heavy and requires more maintenance.
I think there’s still a case for the plug-in hybrid, and I’d still like to own one,
but for EVs to be widespread they need to take a page from the automobile – so much better
than a horse that owning one is a no-brainer. So, how could this happen? Elon Musk recently
did a Tesla shareholder meeting and gave some interesting hints at how Tesla might attack
this problem. Let’s imagine I want a car but I don’t have much money. I could always lease one,
and right now in the US I could get a Tesla Model 3 for $299 (£236, €279, $452 AUD) per month.
That's about £236.
Tesla is betting big on autonomous driving, and has long held out the hope of customers renting
their cars as self-driving taxis, or delivery vehicles such as Uber Eats. So, imagine I can
offset that lease cost by letting Tesla send my vehicle off on its own and have it drive others
around the city. If it gets low on charge it can go and find a charger to re-energise.
I don’t even need the car to park near my home – it can park anywhere or keep driving taxi passengers
throughout the night. Just so long as it’s near me and fully charged when I need it, I don’t care.
By letting my car moonlight when I don’t need it I might even make a profit on the deal; this becomes
a free car that’s always fully charged when I need it. Now that’s a much more interesting prospect.
Of course, getting to a world where this actually happens seems a long way off, and it may be.
There are very few places in the world when cars can drive on their own, and Tesla’s autonomous
driving feature isn’t allowed to drive on its own anywhere. At least not yet. And there’s no way
today that a Tesla can pull up to a charger and be automatically charged. But Tesla is a company
with big dreams, and many of the ideas they’ve previously dreamt up have come true. The Model 3
and Model Y are big sellers, and that money is being invested in future ideas that can grow
the company another 10 fold. Tesla isn’t looking for small incremental market gains, and I’m sure
they’re looking into ways they can get the Early and Late Majority to choose a Tesla electric car.
They could do what other autonomous car companies like Waymo are doing – work with a few cities
like Phoenix, Austin, San Francisco and Los Angeles to certify their cars. And it's not like
robotaxi services are not already a thing. In 2023 would you
believe that Waymo did over 700,000 autonomous taxi rides? Texas is already a big fan
of Tesla now the company’s headquarters are there, so maybe Austin might be a good place to start
autonomous driving for Tesla vehicles. Tesla can build out a comprehensive
Supercharger network and offer new connectors that automatically hook up to the car, or use
inductive charging like your phone’s Qi charger. Now, the sensors that allow for autonomous driving
on Tesla vehicles aren’t a match for Waymo’s, so it’s likely that adverse traffic conditions like
snow would fox them, at least for now. But to bring in enough taxi revenue to pay for itself,
Tesla’s cars only need to work on the majority of days when the weather isn’t a hazard.
This robotaxi idea would have another effect – make it less likely people would even own
a car. If they can get a cheap ride from an autonomous car almost instantly then
why own a vehicle at all? That would drive down internal combustion vehicle sales, and probably
overall car sales over the long term, meaning there would be more available parking spaces.
Now, I’m not saying a solution like this will actually work. I use Tesla’s autonomous
driving feature almost daily and although it’s better than when it first launched,
in my opinion it still has a long way to go. But autonomous driving is getting much better.
Tesla claim their car has fewer crashes than a human when it’s engaged. Logic would suggest that if a computer
driver is safer than a human driver then we’d all embrace it and allow driverless cars. But we don’t
look at it this way. If an autonomous car crashes, it makes the news, and our natural thought is to
think autonomous vehicles are really dangerous. But human crashes rarely get reported. Autonomous
vehicles need to be much, much safer before the public will trust them, which of course is no bad thing,
but this will mean it will take longer for driverless cars to appear on every road.
There’s evidence that Tesla might announce something like this at an event on August 8th,
maybe with a new smaller car that could be even less money to lease. If you’re watching this after
that day you can laugh at how much I got wrong! But it’s clear that electric vehicles can’t rely
on Governments forcing people to switch. EVs need to be much a more attractive prospect to
take a significant share in the market, and right now I’m not seeing any other
radical ideas that will get them there. So, are there other ways EVs can become
ubiquitous? I’d be fascinated if you have other ideas, so please leave them
in the comments. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.