The remarks made by Mr. Akio Toyoda, the CEO of Toyota Motor Corp. (which I discussed here and touched on in passing here) about electric vehicles have attracted a lot of attention (as indeed they should).
Writing for the Daily Telegraph a couple of weeks ago, Oscar Williams-Grut argued that there was more than self-interest behind Toyoda’s comments (Toyota pioneered hybrids and has long had an interest in hydrogen cars). Specifically, Toyoda, argues Williams-Grut, was right to suggest “that putting all our chips behind electric is a risky bet.”
Indeed it is. And the bet, lest we forget, is being made by governments, not engineers. As the CEO of Stellantis, the fifth largest automaker in the world, pointed out last year (2022!), “Electrification is a technology chosen by politicians, not by industry.”
As I keep asking, what could go wrong?
One other thing: The bet might be being made by governments, but the chips really belong to car companies, taxpayers, and car buyers.
As the euro was the triumph of politics over economics, so electrification is the triumph of politics over engineering. That is not a reason for optimism.
Williams-Grut makes the point that the bans on the sale of new internal-combustion engines are coming closer. Thanks to the climate fundamentalism of then–prime minister Boris Johnson, Britain will be one of the first over the cliff. Its ban comes into force in 2030.
More generally, Williams-Grut wonders whether the world will be able to handle the transition.
Let’s just say that he has his doubts, and so does his colleague, Andrew Orlowski, writing a few days later. Unlike an EV, Orlowski’s piece covers a lot of ground, but part of it concerns the critical issue of where the electricity to power all these new EVs is going to come from. Orlowski is discussing the U.K., but it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how similar considerations might apply in the U.S.
[T] he real issue Mr Toyoda has opened up is this: Western societies are charging into the electrification of transport and heating without actually providing the electricity. This cannot be wished away.
In January, the then secretary of state for trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, told Parliament that “we are going to be requiring up to four times as much electricity” to meet demand for electrified heating and transport. Yet we are not building four times as much electric generation capacity.
The energy legacy of the Conservatives will be the loss of reliable energy. For example, only two years ago, the UK was running 15 operational nuclear reactors, but by 2030 it will be just three, and that’s assuming no further delays. The reality is that we have created two parallel energy systems; one of which works, while the other does not. The politicised grid mashes them together, making the one that provides reliable and low cost energy both expensive and unstable.
And then along comes a genuine cold snap which exposes our new reliance on nature, and sub-prime energy technologies. . . .
Relying on “Mother” Nature might delight those lost in fantasies of some pre-industrial paradise, but, as mothers go, “nature” makes Joan Crawford look like June Cleaver. The extraordinary growth in human prosperity over the past two centuries is in no small part the result of the way that humanity has managed to distance itself from its dependence on nature, a lesson that climate fundamentalists despise.
But back to Williams-Grut:
Demand for lithium is forecast to grow fortyfold by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Miners will struggle to keep up, with not enough projects currently under development to dig enough lithium out of the ground to meet demand, the IEA has said.
While the vast majority of [lithium] reserves are in Chile, Argentina and Australia, China has a stranglehold on lithium refining – a necessary step before it can be used in batteries. . . .
Even in the best case scenario of happy relations with China, the sheer popularity of lithium ion batteries threatens to scupper the electric revolution.
Both Williams-Grut and Orlowski refer to a fall in year-on-year demand for EVs in the U.K. in November, the first since Covid showed up. This owes a lot to growing economic problems in Britain, as well as the current increase in the relative cost of electricity against gasoline, and so I wouldn’t draw too much from that single number, but, then again, there’s this (via UK Motor 1):
“[T]he rapid decline in consumer appetite for electric vehicles reveals the market is on thin ice where mass electric adoption is concerned,” said Erin Baker, the editorial director of Auto Trader. “And with the forecast of new car electric sales reaching 50% being pushed back to 2027 the market faces a precarious combination of factors which could cause major potholes on the road to 2030 without further action from government and industry to encourage mass adoption.
“Encourage.”