Could The Entire World Shift To Electric Vehicles In The Next Decade?

A Story in Business Insider claims that the everywhere in the world, all new vehicles will be propelled by electricity.  Not just Portland.  Not just North America.  In every country on the planet every new vehicle will be propelled by electricity.  They report that's the conclusion of a think tank that analyzes disruptive technologies.  Now, the article's title claims that every fossil fueled vehicle will vanish within the next eight years.

While the Preface to the report begins with "The analysis in this report is based on detailed evaluation of data on the market, consumer and regulatory dynamics that work together to

drive disruption," there follows a lengthily disclaimer that begins with the following, "Any findings, predictions, inferences, implications, judgments, beliefs, opinions, recommendations, suggestions and similar matters in this Report are statements of opinion by the authors, and are not statements of fact. You should treat them as such and come to your own conclusions based upon your own research."  In other words, its as though they're saying "yes we've relied on data and analysis to reach our conclusions, but don't think we'd stake our financial future on them, they aren't fact-based, its just our opinion."

Near the beginning of their executive Summary, they assert "By 2030, within 10 years of regulatory approval of autonomous vehicles (AVs), 95% of U.S. passenger miles traveled will be served by on-demand autonomous electric vehicles owned by fleets, not individuals, in a new business model we call “transport- as-a-service” (TaaS)."  Not only do fossil fueled vehicles disappear, so does individual private ownership in favor of on-demand renting of transportation services.

With these kind of articles I run them through my simple reality check.  For this story, my reality check is a rural county in the far Northeastern corner of Oregon.  It's larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, has a little fewer than 7,000 residents, and is cattle, hay, and horse country.  There isn’t one traffic light in the county.  Yet.  There a few bronze foundries that have made the new cases for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in our nation’s capitol, the wreaths on the WWII memorial in D.C., and full size horses for the Ronald Regan Presidential Museum.  Oh, and three larger than life size statutes of another former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, commissioned by, uh, him (I've seen one).

The report essentially argues that instead of buying a new fossil fuel pick up with “duellies” (two tires on either side on the rear axle), they'll buy an electric powered vehicle.  Instead of buying a new fossil fueled combine, it'll be an electric one.  Instead of replacing an aging tractor-trailer rig with a new fossil fueled one, it'll be an electric one.  With all due respect, that's not going to happen anytime soon, let alone in the next eight years. 

Right now, they don't even have one public EV charging station anywhere in the county because its 75 miles to the nearest larger city, La Grande.  There are two folks who own a Prius.  A friend of mine liked the car but traded it in because it wasn’t sturdy enough.  In fact, Joseph, which is a major tourist destination, doesn’t even have reliable Internet service yet.  The closest fiber optics cable ends five miles away in the county seat in Enterprise.

One of their major concerns right now is a fear that the hospital might close if Trumpcare passes.  Since its only a Level IV ER unit, they can help stabilize someone who has had a heart attack, or has a clot, or needs major medical intervention, its going to be an evacuation via either a helicopter or a fixed wing aircraft.

How I know this is I own property in Joseph.  Power interruptions aren't uncommon from the fall into the spring.  My longest period without power was a little over 24 hours.  And my place is in town.  There's one transmission line into the county.  You go to the post office to get your mail, unless you live outside of town in which case its delivered three times a week.

On top of all that are the upgrades to the electricity distribution system that would be required to support such a transformation.

Perhaps someday all new vehicles will run on fuels that don’t emit carbon, including but not limited to EVs.  Perhaps someday individual ownership of those vehicles will be replaced with individual renting of transportation services.  No doubt that is already occurring in very selective urban parts of North America and among a limited set of residents.  Widespread, let alone 95 percent of miles traveled using rented EVs, will come sometime after I’ve gone out to pasture, which hopefully will be long after 2030.

If you care to read more in this area, see: Tony Seba, or Stanford Continuing Studies.