What are you doing to #drivechange this #WorldEVDay ?
Happy World EV Day!
The EV sector has come a long way in the last decade and is expected to go so much further in the coming decades. 10 years ago, EVs sold only 0.02% (1) of new cars in Australia and EV companies were considered highly speculative. Today, EVs sell rough#ly 2% (2) of new cars in Australia and the largest automotive manufacturer by market capitalisation is an EV company (3). Fast forward 10 years - EVs are forecast to sell roughly 20% (4) of new cars. The impact of EVs on our businesses and services will be transformative.
While the sector is still in its infancy, it will soon be a giant. We can likely expect a transition similar to the uptake of automobiles in the early 1900s – many of us are familiar with photos below of New York in 1900 vs. 1913 when the world transitioned from the horse-drawn carriage to the first cars.
While we can predict a fast transition to EVs, we still do not know exactly how the transition will unfold, what solutions will resolve the current challenges, and how our businesses can both enable and adapt to the new technology.
Engevity see many challenges remaining in the EV transition:
• EV Availability: Despite more models becoming available, the lag between placing an order and driving a car can be many months, and launch dates of newer models appear to be consistently delayed.
• Range anxiety: This is still a factor in the consumer's mind, mainly for those who do not own EVs. Customers have found it difficult to access public charging stations, understand the costs and found challenges with faulty chargers in some locations.
• Grid Impacts: There is a risk that EV charging will balloon peak demand and raise energy prices if we are not proactive in shifting consumer behaviour. Electricity networks and retailers need to develop solutions that shift EV charging to the best time of day and encourage uptake of smart charging infrastructure – this could include innovative tariff structures, dynamic operating envelopes or aggregation for EVs, customer incentives to install smart chargers, and EV charging standards that ensure these solutions work consistently. To enable more charging solutions, electricity networks need to provide information that enable third parties to propose public charging solutions in the right locations of the network – for example, this could be publishing network capacity maps.
• Business Models: Australian businesses need to consider the opportunities for EVs to transform their business models and operations. For example, clients we have worked with have used EVs to reduce their energy costs, help reach net zero targets and create new revenue streams. However, many are still climbing a steep learning curve on the new capex to opex trade-off equation.
In response to some of these challenges, Engevity welcomes Minister Bowen's ambition to review Australia's fuel efficiency standards and EV strategy announced at the National EV Summit recently. These policies will encourage more manufacturers to distribute new models to Australia, hopefully unlocking the budget and utility segments.
Many in the EV space are excited that this will advance Australia's EV uptake. As EV uptake increases, our industries will need to fast track their EV integration initiatives. This can be seen as a challenge and an opportunity. We look forward to supporting customers to explore how EVs may transform the way their businesses operate.
Reach out to the Engevity Team if you are looking to accelerate your EV journey (pun intended!).
#WorldEVDay #drivechange #EV #electricvehicle #transition #renewables #energy
References:
(1.) State of EVs, Aug 2022, p21 https://electricvehiclecouncil.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/EVC_annual_report_-V3-Aug-13th-1.pdf
(2.) State of EVs, March 2022, p5 https://electricvehiclecouncil.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/EVC-State-of-EVs-2022-1.pdf
Author: Craig Chambers, Jordan Welsh