According to a recent report from EV volumes, 2020 was a great year for plug-in vehicles.
It reveals that global Battery Electric Vehicles +Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle sales hit 3,24 million, compared to 2,26 million for the year previous.
All over the world right now, governments are fast tracking the journey towards the end of petrol and diesel cars.
- the state of California will ban the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks starting in 2035, Norway, aims to become the world’s first country to end the sale of fossil fuel-powered cars, setting a 2025 deadline. Fully electric vehicles now make up about 60% of monthly sales in Norway
But this is all future talk. Lets think less about 2025, 2030 and 2035, and think about 2021 and the paths we are on right now.
What has the last ten years brought in terms of EV development, and where are we right now when it comes to the EV market?
Paul Loustalan, a partner with Reddie & Grose, a provider of patents, trade marks and designs and particularly patents coming from the EV market, sits down with Dale Benton to explore the significant advancements made in the global EV market.
The next ten years will be an interesting time for the automotive industry:
- Jaguar announced that it will Turn All Electric By 2025,
Change isn’t coming. It’s already here.
But much like any other industry, the larger players dominate the headlines (and the market) but the smaller players bring about true disruption. In the financial space, the larger incumbents were once upon a time disinterested in what the start ups and fintechs were doing, but now they are making radical changes in order to catch up to them and cater to the new financial customers of today. So is it fair to assume that the smaller start-ups and disruptors in the EV and automotive space, are forcing the bigger companies to not only look over their shoulders, but think about their own futures?
If you were to look around the world right now EVs are here. As noted already, global EV and Plug in hybrid sales soared to 3,24 million in 2020. But for some, EVs remain just out of reach. We were lead to believe we’d all be driving fully automated EVs by now, and yet we aren’t.
EVs are something that we’ve spoken about for many years as coming soon. But as we can see they’re here right now. So why is there still a perception that, despite the promises and government mandates, EVs will always remain a technology of the future?
We know the benefits, we see what it can and will and already is doing in terms of carbon emissions and energy consumption, but as with any technology there will always be the challenge of; do the customers want it? For every customer who wants a new, energy efficient car, there will be one who is happy to continue using what works best for them – and why shouldn’t they?
It can never be as black as white as saying; there are those who want the new and those who don’t, and companies need to cater to all consumers and ease those who are reluctant into the new era of the automotive industry.
As with any technology, when it works, it sells itself. We as consumers can see it operating successfully and the benefits it will bring to our lives. In the automotive industry, we think of a car and outside of cosmetics – we simply ask that it works and that it allows us to go about our daily lives with relative ease.
If it can save us some money, and reduce our carbon footprint, then even better. Success stories sell. But what significance is there in focusing on failure? Can that actually be a good thing in terms of the conversation surrounding EV technology? Can we gain more from hearing about those failures than we would by simply focusing on the successes?
As we speak in 2021, the next 10 years are going to see huge shifts in the EV market and we will start to see them in the next four. We don’t know for sure what’s going to happen and how well its going to pan out. But we can see trends and see data and anticipate the next wave of innovation.
Whatever the future has in store for us all, EVs are here. People are driving them right now. And there’s going to be more of them appearing on the roads and parked up on the driveways as the world moves away from diesel and petrol combustion engine vehicles.
