A decade ago, any battery powered car would likely be called a toy car, one which children where either controlling with a remote or riding in confined spaces.
Today, the appetite for battery powered (electric) cars is on the rise and a favourite even for adults as electric cars gain momentum in replacing petrol/diesel vehicles.
On Monday, Mercedes-Benz became the latest automaker to embrace deployment of electric cars, announcing that its entire vehicle line-up will be electric-powered by 2022. The German automaker plans to offer either hybrid or fully electric versions of its vehicles by 2022, adding up to a total of a minimum of 50 new electric model options by that time.
Mercedes is not alone in the “switch game”, as Volvo earlier announced that all new cars launched from 2019 will be partially or completely battery-powered, in what the company described as a “historic end” to building models that only have an internal combustion engine. Ford’s Lincoln luxury sub-brand has also set 2022 as the deadline for offering electric variants of each of its vehicle models.
Apart from car makers, more countries appear to be towing the path of adopting electric cars. China’s announcement this past weekend appears to be a game changer of some sort, with the world’s most populous nation expressing readiness to eventually ban the sale of all fossil fuel-powered cars in the country, within a timeline to be determined.
Xin Guobin, the vice minister of industry and information technology, according to Bloomberg, said that the government is working with other regulators on a timetable to end production and sales. The move will have a profound impact on the environment and growth of China’s auto industry, Xin said at an auto forum in Tianjin on Saturday.
China’s vehicle sales numbers have led the world recently, and are increasing at an impressive clip annually, and with the recent announcement, it becomes logical for automakers to start reconfiguring their long-term strategy to focus on Electric vehicles.
The United Kingdom has also disclosed plans to impose a ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2040, just as Sweden, France, and Norway have expressed similar intentions.
These plans to phase out petrol and diesel cars are riding on the back of the desire to tackle air pollution problems and limit global warming in the face of climate change.
In order to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the target set by the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, the world will need 600 million electric vehicles by 2040, according to Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).
Electric cars are considered a better and greener alternative to fuel-driven cars because, irrespective of the source of their power – solar, hydro, wind, biofuel, or even nuclear – they produce zero carbon in operation.
The number of electric vehicles rocketed 60 percent to 2 million in 2016, according to Paris-based International Energy Agency. In the UK, over 100,000 plug-in Electric Vehicles (EVs) were on the country’s roads as of March 2017 out of which 4,500 were commercial vans. That’s more than 28 times the number they were in 2013, at merely 3,500.
France, on the other hand, became the fifth nation to buy 100,000 plug-in vehicles in 2017, according to the IEA. This number literally tripled from 2014 levels.
Some electric car models include; Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, Venturi Fetish, Rimac Concept One and S, Renault Zoe and Influence ZE, Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi Outlander P-HEV, BMW i3, Volkswagen e-Golf and e-Up.
In less than five years, it is expected that anyone still hoping to continue patronage of petrol/diesel cars may not only find it difficult making a purchase, even availability of spare parts for existing models will gradually become a challenge.
CALEB OJEWALE
