Australia's sub-$35K EV

I mentioned this sub-A$35,000  EV here, but this gives more detail.  (Remember when comparing Ozzie car prices with US ones that because of the exchange rate, Ozzie prices will start out 30% higher, to which you have to add 5% import duty and 10% GST, making the A$ price 50% higher than the US$ one.)

This report is from CarAdvice.

The budget hatchback will have a range of 500km and accelerate from 0-100km/h in 'less than 5.0 seconds', according to the Australian importer.

New details of the upcoming BYD electric hatchback – which importer Nexport claims will be sold in Australia for “well under $35,000” when order books open later this year – have been revealed exclusively to CarAdvice.

The Chinese-built five-door – which was unveiled as the EA1 in China last week, but will be sold locally under a different nameplate – has a range of approximately 500km, according to Nexport founder Luke Todd.

For reference, the MG ZS EV, which is currently the cheapest electric car offered in Australia from $43,990 drive-away, has a claimed range of just 263km.

Meanwhile, the 0-100km/h sprint will reportedly take “less than 5.0 seconds” in entry-level guise – comparable acceleration to the launch control-equipped Volkswagen Golf R hot hatch.

“Our range of six cars will completely change the automotive landscape in Australia, and we expect to be a top-five manufacturer within 24 months,” Mr Todd told CarAdvice.

“There has been a lot of discussion about the government’s role in electric vehicle take-up, but our view is that electric cars need to be able to compete with internal combustion cars on price – we believe we are the manufacturer to make that happen,” Mr Todd added.

Assuming the aforementioned performance figures are accurate – and the car is sold for under $35,000 with a reasonable warranty – the BYD hatchback could well be a complete game changer for the local market.

However, CarAdvice is yet to test drive the vehicle, or verify the somewhat-radical claims made by its local importer.

Order books are slated to open on 1 July 2021, with the first customer deliveries promised during the first quarter of next year (January to March inclusive).

For comparison, the Toyota Camry hybrid is A$33,500, but that's before additional 'drive away' costs which can add a couple of thousand dollars.  The cheapest Toyota Corolla hybrid is A$27,500 before on costs.  And note that these are not plug-in hybrids.   From the look of it, this BYD will fit somewhere between the Camry and the Corolla, so the price is reasonable. The cheapest Tesla Model 3 costs A$63,000.  

With running costs for EVs in Australia less than half the running costs of ICEVs, even with the new EV tax, it'll be a winner.

Toyota's biggest selling hybrid isn't the Prius

From Green Car Reports:

The top-selling Toyota hybrid vehicle in the U.S. over the past year wasn’t part of the Prius family.
In 2019, the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid wins that crown. According to Toyota’s 2019 year-end sales summary, released Friday, Toyota sold 92,525 RAV4 Hybrid SUVs to U.S. buyers in 2019, versus just 69,718 Toyota Prius Liftback models.

Going all the way back to the debut of Toyota’s hybrid system in the 2000 Prius, it's the first year that another hybrid model outsold the Prius.

It’s not clear, of course, whether this is Toyota’s doing, via deciding product mix, or a matter of consumer demand for hybrids in one form waxing and another waning. But the concern about the Corolla Hybrid cannibalizing Prius sales wouldn't have helped it take the lead; Corolla Hybrid and Prius sales combined (including Prime) still didn't add up to RAV4 Hybrid numbers.

Long ago, Toyota stated clearly that its intent with its hybrid system was to move it from the niche Prius into its mainstream lineup and “go big” with it there, while the Prius would continue to be a technology harbinger in other ways, if it continued.

Toyota just hasn’t moved the Prius on to the next logical step—which might be a plug-in hybrid with an especially long electric range, or perhaps a vehicle that gets aggressive with solar supplementation. While there’s a plug-in Toyota Prius Prime model in the sidelines, there’s also a 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime model on the way later this year—with considerably more electric miles.

With RAV4 sales of all versions totaling 448,071 in 2019—the top-selling model in Toyota’s entire lineup—that also figures to hybrids making up more than 20 percent.

I was surprised by how small the cost difference between the RAV4 and its hybrid sister was—just US$2200.  The hybrid version gets 41 mpg (5.7 litres per 100 km) vs about 25 mpg for the petrol version (9.4 litres per 100 km). (Some reports give lower mpg for the hybrid RAV4.) This means that if you want to make a difference to your carbon footprint, you can buy the hybrid version of the RAV4, reduce your carbon emissions, and over the life of the car save money. 

Even better, Toyota plans a plug-in hybrid version later this year.  It seems Toyota has finally decided to hedge its bets about hydrogen fuel-celled cars, and start introducing electrified versions.  This will allow you to charge your car up overnight in the garage, use mostly electric power for the day's driving, but also have the range for long distance.  Unless you can spring for a Tesla, this makes a lot of sense for those of us who want to reduce our emissions.  I'll probably be buying one myself.  One day.

AU EV sales start to pick up

 The Labor government, after it took office, allowed EVs to be bought on a novated lease through your employer without having to pay fringe benefit tax.  Too complicated to explain to non-Australians, but in essence it allows you to have an EV on lease at a substantial discount equal to your marginal tax rate plus the 10% general sales tax.  For people on the lowest marginal tax rate (above zero), this equates to a ~30% tax cut.  The introduction of this incentive caused a huge jump in EV sales, followed by a bit of a slump.  This slump was worsened by Tesla sales declining fast, as Tesla has until recently made up most of the sales of EVs.

But over the last few months, the big jump in the number of models available in Oz has led to a rebound in sales.  BYD has just reduced the price on its entry-level EV to below A$30,000.   The cheapest Toyota Corolla starts at $26,400, but that isn't a hybrid.  The cheapest hybrid Corolla is $31,790.   At some point this year, V2H (vehicle to house) charging will be enabled.  Even at the lowest non-zero marginal tax rate, the cheapest BYD will cost just $20K, but will also be a house battery.  A comparable Tesla Powerwall will set you back ~$25K.  However, the bi-directional chargers are still pricey, though even adding that cost to your car still leaves you with big cost savings, especially when you consider how much cheaper EVs are to run than petrol vehicles.  The point about this is that EV price competition continues, and EVs are now very good value, and will get better.   Expect sales to rise fast.

Recent months showing a pick-up, but still down on the 2023 peak

Year-on-year sales growth is back above +30%, after a low of -27%

B.C. tops Quebec and California as EV capital of North America

 From an article in the Times Colonist, a newspaper published in Victoria, British Columbia.

Just some excerpts:

British Columbians are opting to ditch their gasoline-powered cars for electric vehicles at a higher rate than anywhere in North America, according to a new report from the province. 

Electric and other zero-emission vehicles — such as plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell electric vehicles — made up 13 per cent of all new light-duty vehicle sales in B.C. last year, according to the 2021 Zero-Emission Vehicle Update released Friday. 

Mark Zacharias, a special adviser for the Simon Fraser University-based research group Clean Energy Canada, says that’s nearly double the sales seen in California and Quebec, North America’s second and third hottest jurisdictions for electric vehicle sales.  

In sheer volume of sales, California accounted for nearly half of all electric vehicle sales in the United States, whereas together, Quebec and B.C. made up 80 per cent of sales in Canada.

In B.C., the number of registered electric vehicles climbed to 80,000 from just under 56,000 a year earlier, a nearly 44 per cent increase in one year. [At that growth rate, sales will double every 2 years.] 

Zacharias says the numbers aren’t surprising. 

“In all instances and in all categories, electric vehicles are cheaper over a lifetime,” he said. 

The average EV owner in B.C. saves between $1,800 and $2,500 per year by ditching their gas-powered car, and even more over the long-term due to lower maintenance costs, according to the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation. 

Consider an analysis released earlier this week from Clean Energy Canada, which found a 2022 gas[petrol]-powered Toyota Corolla is 54 per cent more expensive over its lifetime compared to an electric Chevy Bolt. 

At just over $21,000 new, the Corolla is a little less than half the price of a new Bolt. But with half the cost of maintenance and only $8 to fully charge the Bolt in B.C., owners of the electric vehicle would save nearly $30,000 over the lifetime of the car, found the study.

Choose the electric Chevy over the gas-powered Toyota, and an owner driving 20,000 kilometres per year would also cut their annual carbon footprint by 3.3 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

In another example, Clean Energy Canada found the electric Hyundai Kona, Canada’s second best-selling EV in 2021, is $15,000 cheaper to own over the lifetime of the vehicle than the gas-powered Kona. 

“If gas prices were to average $2, as we’ve seen in parts of Canada this past month, the electric Kona is $24,000 cheaper to own than the gas-powered Kona,” the report concluded.

[...]

Zacharias says manufacturing costs are coming down so fast that the sticker price of a new EV and gas-powered vehicle are expected to hit parity sometime between 2025 and 2030. 

Batteries are by far the most expensive part of an electric vehicle, and to bring their cost down means making them more efficient. Once batteries can put out a kilowatt-hour of energy for $100, electric vehicles will almost certainly hit parity, according to Bloomberg.

As University of British Columbia energy economics professor Werner Antweiler puts it: “The moment electric cars are cheaper than gasoline cars, it’s a no-brainer. We’re getting to that point.” 

But Zacharias says there have been some delays in those predictions.

Last year, average battery prices fell to $132/kWh, down from $140/kWh in 2020, according to BloombergNEF’s annual battery price survey. That represents a six per cent drop, and though substantial, is less than the nine per cent decline from the year before. 

The Bloomberg report says that is largely a result of supply chain shocks on raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel, key components used in electric vehicle batteries. 

[...]

[T]he number of Canadians considering an electric vehicle has reached a strong majority. 

As part of the Clean Energy Canada report this week, Abacus conducted a poll of Canadians asking how they felt about owning an electric car: 19 per cent said they loved the idea, 31 per said they were interested and 29 per cent said they are open to it.

Together, nearly 80 per cent said they would consider buying an electric vehicle as their next car.

[Read more here]



Since y'all know what EVs look like, here's a picture of Victoria, B C.

Victoria, British Columbia ―  Inner Harbour

Tesla's model 3 best selling car in Australia

 It sounds better than it is, but it's still pretty good.

From Tesmanian

Tesla Model 3 again achieved significant results in the Australian automotive market. The American manufacturer's car became the best-selling passenger car in Australia in March 2022 and outsold the Toyota Corolla.

This year, Tesla, for the first time in history, began submitting sales data for its vehicles in Australia and the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries collected them. According to the information, Tesla Model 3 was the most popular passenger car in Australia in March with a monthly sales volume of 3,097 units. In second place was the Hyundai i30 with 2,455 sales. In third place was the popular Toyota Corolla with 1,924 sales. It also makes Model 3 the fifth best-selling car in the country behind only Toyota HiLux (6324), Toyota RAV4 (4610), Mitsubishi Triton (3808), and Mazda CX-5 (3772).

In the first three months of 2022, Tesla sold 4,417 Model 3s, making it the best-selling electric vehicle in the country, accounting for two-thirds of all sales in the segment. The success of Model 3 in the overall automotive market was so impressive that even the longtime favorites, Toyota Camry and BMW 3 Series, were left far behind. Toyota sold 3,359 Camrys during this period, while BMW 3 Series sold only 788 units.

Tesla does not have monthly active deliveries of vehicles to Australia. Ships usually reach the shores in the second month of the quarter, so the bulk of registrations traditionally take place in the third month of each quarter. At the moment, Tesla has started the year very actively and if it continues with the same intensity, Model 3 will have every chance of becoming the best-selling passenger car in Australia in 2022.

So, in Q1, Model 3s were 8% of car sales, and 2.3% of car and SUV sales.   The Tesla Model Y is not yet available in Oz.  The Model 3 is expensive in Australia, and though there are subsidies, they are small.  The right-wing federal government is hostile to EVs.  Tesla doesn't advertise.  And yet, 4 years ago, all EVs and PHEVs made up just 0.3% of the market.  When the Model Y goes on sale later this year, Teslas could make up 8% of the total car+SUV market, and all EVs ±10%.  This is truly a flexion point in the S growth curve.

EVs reach cost parity with petrol cars

BYD has just launched the cheapest EV in Australia --- and it costs the same as comparable petrol cars, even before big tax concessions.




From Drive

Two Chinese automotive giants have sparked a price war aiming to undercut each other to earn the title of Australia's cheapest electric car.

Three days after Chinese brand MG announced a new electric car – the MG 4 – priced from $38,990 before on-road costs, arch-rival BYD has announced its new model – the BYD Dolphin – will start from $38,890 before on-road costs.

When they arrive in showrooms later this year, both vehicles will cost close to or in excess of $40,000 drive-away once registration fees and other charges are added.

The distributor for BYD vehicles in Australia today said the $100 difference in RRP between the two electric cars was a coincidence and the price was "locked in months ago."

Orders for the Dolphin – the second mass-produced model from the Chinese electric-car giant in Australia – opened at 8:00pm AEST on 22 June 2023.

All five electric cars available in Australia for less than $50,000 made in China by three local car brands – MG, BYD and GWM Haval.

There are three model grades: the entry-level Dynamic and the long-range Premium, both due this year, plus the performance-oriented Sport due next year.

About the same size as a Toyota Corolla or Hyundai i30, the Dolphin is almost $10,000 cheaper than BYD's other vehicle on sale in Australia, the $48,011 plus on-road costs Atto 3 small SUV.

It also undercuts the GWM Ora Standard Range from China ($43,990) – and is priced in line with popular petrol-powered hatchbacks including the Toyota Corolla ZR Hybrid ($39,100), Hyundai i30 N Line Premium ($37,300) and Mazda 3 G25 GT ($38,420). All prices listed are before on-road costs.

The entry-level Dolphin is powered by a 70kW/180Nm electric motor and a 44.9kWh battery pack, good for 340km of claimed driving range in European WLTP lab testing, and zero to 100km/h acceleration in a claimed 12.3 seconds.

A more powerful Premium version is available with a 150kW/310Nm electric motor and 60.48kWh battery good for 427km of estimated WLTP range.

There are cheaper petrol cars.  For example, you can buy the Kia Picante automatic for about $18K.

But EVs are exempt from fringe benefit tax (FBT), a tax which applies if your employer provides you with a car as part of your salary package.    This means that if your employer provides you with an EV, your taxable salary is reduced.  You save whatever your top marginal tax rate is.  For many people, that's 32.5%.  But you also save on GST (general sales tax).  It is added to your monthly novated lease cost, but your employer can claim it back off its own GST.  GST is 10%.    So that means that the effective cost of a BYD Dolphin bought through your employer is about $23,000.  Given that the tiniest petrol car costs $18,000 .....  

But wait, what about people who aren't paying income tax?  Well, the way the FBT car deals work is that after three to five years you have the option of buying the car at a reduced value, or of getting a new car on a new lease, in which case, your employer will sell the car.  So the supply of second hand EVs will jump in two years (this FBT concession was started on July 1st last year), as fringe benefit cars get shifted into the second hand car market.  

Of course, this isn't the end of the decline in the price of EVs --- battery costs will go on falling.  But it surely marks the beginning of the end for petrol cars in Australia.   Oil companies, garages, legacy car dealers, all will face falling revenue and a declining market share.  Toyota, for example, doesn't even sell EVs in Australia, yet.   Most service stations don't have EV chargers on the premises, even though their higher margin business is the groceries and stuff they sell in their shops, not the petrol on their forecourts.  They're not paying attention, and it will be very costly for them.

Oz's EV sales: The Musk effect

 Australia's EV sales plunged in February.  This appears to be mostly because of a collapse in Tesla sales, down 75% in February over February last year.  And it's no good saying that it's because the market is waiting for the "refreshed" Model Y: Model 3 sales were down 80% over the same period.  

The new BYD sub-A$30,000 EV has been announced but not yet released.  I expect its sales will be phenomenal, because it's about the same size and same price as the cheapest Toyota Corolla, the Ascent Sport.   

If you routinely drive long distances, then you will prolly want a plug-in hybrid or an ICEV, because the rural charging network in Australia is still pretty feeble.   But if you mostly drive in the city, going to the supermarket or picking up the kids from school, while charging your EV in your garage, an EV will save you upwards of $2000 a year, and even more if you have your own solar panels, for the same up-front costs as the cheapest Corolla.  In addition, there's talk that the new BYD will allow V2H  (vehicle to house) charging later this year, which means you'll also save on your electricity bill.  In my case, I'd save $2,000 a year.  So your new BYD EV will pay for itself over 7 years.  Oh, and that's ignoring the tax incentives you'll get if you buy an EV (minimum 20% if you get average earnings, more if you earn more).

In short, I expect runaway sales of BYD's new EV.  Is this the low for EV sales?  Prolly; how much further can Tesla sales fall?  And, meanwhile, BYD has picked up the baton.

Cutting car emissions by 50%. Cheaply & cleanly

Let's look at the petrol (gasoline) consumption and pricing of the Toyota Corolla Sedan Hybrid compared with the petrol-only ("un-electric") version of the same car.  I've taken the data from CarAdvice's review:

While stop-start drudgery wasn’t a part of the program, a mix of open road and some heated pedalling through the fun stuff delivered decent fuel consumption results. Toyota suggests the petrol auto is capable of 6.0 litres per 100km, while we saw 8.0L/100km. The hybrid offers an official 3.5L/100km (better even than the 4.2L/100km hatch), but in the real world ended up at 4.0L/100km. [That's 29 MPG for the un-electric and 59 MPG for the hybrid.]

In terms of equipment, none are missing anything, but of course the range of features and trinkets grows as you step up through the range.

Crucially, all variants come with safety kit including autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection (day and night) and cyclist detection (day), seven airbags, lane-departure alert with steering assist, road sign recognition, active cornering assist, two ISOFIX and three top-tether child seat mounts, and a reverse camera.

Automatics feature lane-trace control for more accurate lane centring and all-speed cruise control. The manual Ascent Sport has ‘high-speed’ adaptive cruise (from 30km/h and up) and misses out on trace control. The SX and ZR also pick up blind-spot monitoring.

Pricing starts from [A]$23,335 for the manual, [A]$24,835 for the petrol CVT [Continuously Variable Transmission], and [A]$26,335 for the hybrid (before on-road costs).

This will prolly be the car I buy.  I have a Toyota Corolla Sedan now, and I like it.  Getting a hybrid will only cost A$1,500 more, and I will cut my petrol bill by 50%.  It will pay for itself within 3 years.  My only complaint is that it is so ugly.

But the key point is this: we can transition to hybrids and cut emissions by 50% for very little.   As I said here, EV-promoting policies such as subsidies and EV targets should not discriminate against hybrids.  Although they only cut emissions by 30-50%, because the cost difference is so small they are much more likely to be taken up by consumers than full-on electrics.  Which means we get a real cut in emissions immediately, without having to wait for EVs to have sticker prices below ICEVs.  And when battery prices do fall enough, the transition from hybrid to electric will be seamless and natural.  It'll simply become cheaper to put in a decent battery pack with a single (electric) engine than to have two engines with a much smaller battery pack.   If you think it'll take a long time for manufacturers to transition to hybrids, consider this: 2 years ago, Hyundai had no electric cars at all in its line-up.  Almost all manufacturers now have HEVs and PHEVs as part of their offering.  Governments everywhere could reach 100% electric car sales within a couple of years, at low cost, if they're prepared to accept hybrids as a bridge to full electrics later this decade.

We have to cut emissions and we have to cut them now.  HEVs aren't perfect, because they still produce CO2 and pollution.  But waiting for the perfection of EVs means big delays, which we can't afford.  And in the meantime, we can cut our car fleet's emissions by 30 or 40 or 50%.

The hybrid solution

I've been fairly dismissive of hybrids in the past.  After all, it appears to make no sense to have two engines in a car.  And eventually, battery prices will fall enough to make full-on electric the cheapest way to go.  But—the problem is that battery prices won't get cheap enough to give EVs an up-front cost advantage for 5 years (or more—see below).  Plus, the demand for batteries is so strong that there aren't enough to go round, as I discuss in The EV Bridge.  And there's the issue of range anxiety.  If you buy a Tesla, you'll have no problems.  But any other brand, here in Oz, at any rate, there are just too few chargers. 

So, while EVs are clearly the technology of the future, for the time being hybrids (whether serial or parallel, plug-in or not) are still cheaper and more popular.  And since we must cut emissions as rapidly as possible, we should encourage any electric car, hybrid (HEV) or plug-in hybrid (PHEV) or full-on electric (EV).

The price gap between hybrids and the un-hybrid version of a car model seems  to be low (see Toyota's biggest selling hybrid isn't the Prius)—just US$ 2,200.  And that will deliver a 30 to 40% cut in emissions. 

Here's the 2019 pricing of the Hyundai Ioniq in the US:

Hybrid                $22,400
Plug-in Hybrid   $25,350
EV                      $29,815

Let's assume there were a Hyundai Ioniq without an electric motor, an "un-electric" as it were.  Using the Corolla price gap, it would cost, say $20,000.  This means that the full-on electric would cost roughly 50% more than the un-electric, the plug-in hybrid 25% more.  Even though both the plug-in hybrid and the full electric will be cheaper to run than the un-electric, the sales of these cheaper electric versions of the Ioniq still wouldn't replace sales of the un-electric, because ppl have to find the up-front cost of the car, whereas the petrol costs are spread over its lifetime.  You can lease a car, but not everyone is able or willing to do that, and HP requires a deposit and the costs are still mostly up-front.

So, what to do?

Let's suppose we gave a subsidy of $2,500 to all electric cars.  Using the Ioniq as an exemple, that would remove the up-front cost disadvantage of the HEV, reduce it for the PHEV to where the HEV's is today, and reduce the cost premium of the full-on EV relative to the un-electric to 37% from 50%.  With a $2500 subsidy, rational consumers would buy electric.  At first, most would buy the simple hybrid, though some would buy plug-in hybrids, and a few would buy the full EV.  Emissions would fall by at least 40% as the car fleet transitioned.

I don't know how much the Ioniq EV's battery bank costs, but the petrol engine + gearbox + radiator + petrol tank must cost more than an electric engine—look at the small gap between the HEV and the un-electric, which represents the addition of an electric engine plus a small battery.  This means the Ioniq's EV battery bank costs, say, $12,000.  In five years' time, given that battery prices are falling by 20% per annum, it will cost just $4000, so the cost of an EV Ioniq will be close to the cost of the HEV, and below the cost of the PHEV ('cos you'll only need one engine).  At that point, the subsidy will encourage ppl to buy the 100% electric car instead of the HEV.

Eventually, the EV would be cost competitive even without subsidy.  On the Ioniq's current pricing, EVs will equal the cost of an un-electric in 8 years (longer than I had thought—I've been estimating 2023 or 2024, but this suggests 2028).  The trouble is, we haven't got 8 years to waste.  We must electrify our car fleet as soon as we can.

Instead of a subsidy, we could set rising targets for electric (of whatever kind) sales as a percentage of total sales, starting at 10% and increasing each year by 15%, so that by 2027 the EV/HEV/PHEV target would be 100% .   It works like this.  If a car wholesaler/manufacturer reached their target, there would be no penalty.  If they didn't, they would have to buy points from those who have.  Let's say the target is 10%, but they only reach 8%.  They'd have to buy points equal to 2% of their total car sales.  If they exceeded the target, they would have surplus points available for sale.  But unlike the Californian and Chinese schemes, under my scheme, the manufacturer would earn 1 point for each electric car, whatever its type, rather than 1/4 point for an HEV, 1/2 a point for a PHEV and 1 point for an EV*.

The Californian and Chinese EV targets encourage sales of EVs over PHEVs and PHEVs over HEVs, by giving more points to the EVs than lesser electric cars.  But that distinction is prolly unnecessary, and may slow the uptake of electric vehicles.  As EV costs decline, they will automatically be chosen over HEVs and PHEVs.  A target/subsidy which simply rewards buying an EV of whatever kind would lead to a much bigger take-up of electric cars than one which rewards EVs only, because hybrids are only a little more expensive than un-electrics.  As battery costs decline over the next 7 to 8 years, sales of full-on EVs would rise progressively, until 100% of electric sales are made up of EVs.  This would mean that we could start cutting emissions from transport now, not in 5 or 7 or 10 years while we wait for EVs to become cost competitive.

 If at first electric sales are mostly HEVs or PHEVs, it wouldn't matter, because each year emissions of 1/12 of the vehicle fleet (assuming a 12 year car life) would fall, by an increasing percentage, as the electric target bit deeper.  After 6 years, emissions of an additional 1/12th of the total car fleet each year would fall by 40%, rising progressively as EVs took a larger and larger market share.  This would mean that total car emissions would be falling by 3% per annum from 2025 onwards, and this decline would continue and accelerate as the percentage of EVs in the mix rises.  Over the first 10 years, the cut in emissions would come from hybrids, over the next 10 from a further step-by-step switch to EVs.

The world must, at a minimum, target a 3% per annum cut in total emissions if we are to avoid a climate catastrophe.  By being less purist about HEVs relative to EVs, we can rapidly reduce emissions from cars (and implicitly, lorries and busses) starting now.  Almost all manufacturers have one or other kind of hybrid in their line-up.  And they have them now.  The transition would be simple and easy.  And from 2026 onwards, we could take the next step: going for 100% electric.

Two reviews of the Ioniq:


Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid 2019 review

Hyundai Ioniq 2020 review: Plug-in Hybrid Premium

—————

* or rather 1 point for an HEV, 2 points for a PHEV and 4 points for an EV, which implies that the effective EV target is lower than the stated one.

BYD slashes the price of its Dolphin EV

 

The BYD Dolphin

BYD has just cut the price of its cheapest Dolphin hatchback EV to A$29,990.  This compares with the cheapest Toyota Corolla at A$29,880.  

This is it, folks:  EVs now have a "sticker price" equal to petrol cars. (They've been much cheaper to run for ages)    This is before any tax incentives (if you lease a car through your company in Australia, you can save a minimum 30% off the price).  And remember, you can (or soon will be able to) run your house from your EV: while a single 13.5 kWh Tesla Powerwall costs $A13,500, you get a car and a battery with 45 kWh of storage for $A30,000.  

Right now, about half the electricity my solar panels generate is fed into the grid, but the feed-in tariff is negligible.  However, when I draw power from the grid in the evening, I pay peak rates.  20% of a Dolphin BYD's battery will produce enough electricity to run my house from 5 pm to 10 pm, and then I can charge the battery up using late night low price electricity.  My electricity bill will be negligible.  Not only will I be able to drive for zero cost, I will also save a few hundred dollars a year on my electricity.  In fact, it will pay me to put more panels on my roof.  Many commentators ignore the benefits for the grid of EVs with V2H capacity.  (V2H and V2G have just been introduced in Australia, and I don't know whether the BYD Dolphin is yet capable of this)

Even if you don't have solar panels, electricity utilities will soon see the sense of allowing EV owners to charge up their cars when there is excess supply of electricity (at midday and between midnight and 5 am), when wholesale prices are negative.

The decline in EV prices is just going to continue.   There is fierce competition between car makers in China.  Battery manufacturers are competing to cut battery prices, increase energy density, and make charging quicker, and their competition is driving battery prices down.  And the Chinese Yuan is falling because the Chinese economy is so weak.

Does anybody still think it's going to take until 2035 for EV sales to make up 100% of car sales?  They're currently stagnating in Australia because Tesla sales are falling so fast.  But in 2025, BYD will more than make up for that.

(I'll talk about BYD's luscious new PHEV ute (bakkie/pick-up) in my next piece.)

What's up with Toyota?

Toyota Prius being filled with petrol

Toyota developed the revolutionary hybrid engine with its Prius, and was the first car company to sell hybrids on a large scale.  Yet it has resisted pure EVs, instead throwing its cap into the hydrogen fuel-cell drive camp.  But fuel cell cars haven't really taken off.  They've remained pricey, while EVs just keep on getting cheaper, with longer ranges too.  One of the arguments for fuel-cell vehicles is that re-charge times are much less than with batteries, but now EV charge speeds have dramatically improved.  Tesla's new high-speed chargers can load 1000 miles of charge into the batteries in an hour, 75 miles in 5 minutes.    Meanwhile, you can charge your EV wherever you have a electric plug, which means wherever there is electricity, though that will take several hours.  For most people, though, that's not a problem, because you can charge your EV overnight in your garage, just as you would charge your mobile phone or your laptop.  Hydrogen refuelling on the other hand requires a whole new infrastructure, and where it doesn't exist, you have no way to refuel your car. 

So what has Toyota done?   DeSmogBlog comments:

There are at least 12 car companies currently selling an all-electric vehicle in the United States, and Toyota isn’t one of them. Despite admitting recently that the Tesla Model 3 alone is responsible for half of Toyota’s customer defections in North America — as Prius drivers transition to all-electric — the company has been an outspoken laggard in the race to electrification.

Now, the company is using questionable logic to attempt to justify its inaction on electrification, claiming that its limited battery capacity better serves the planet by producing gasoline-electric hybrids. 

For years, Toyota leadership has shunned investment in all-electric cars, laying out a more conservative strategy to “electrify” its fleet — essentially doubling down on hybrids and plug-in hybrids — as a bridge to a future generation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. As Tesla, Nissan, and GM have led the technological shift to fully battery electric vehicles, Toyota has publicly bashed the prospects of all-electric fleets. (See, for instance, the swipe the company took at plug-in vehicles in this recent Toyota Corolla Hybrid commercial.)

Last week, at the Geneva Auto Show, a Toyota executive provided a curious explanation for the company’s refusal to launch a single battery electric vehicle. As Car and Driver reported, Toyota claims that it is limited by battery production capacity and that “Toyota is able to produce enough batteries for 28,000 electric vehicles each year — or for 1.5 million hybrid cars.”

In other words, because Toyota has neglected to invest in battery production, it can only produce enough batteries for a trivial number of all-electric vehicles.

Due to this self-inflicted capacity shortage, the company is forced to choose between manufacturing 1.5 million hybrids or 28,000 electric cars. Using what Car and Driver called “fuzzy math,” the company tried to justify the strategy to forgo electric vehicles (EVs) on environmental grounds.
As Toyota explained it, “selling 1.5 million hybrid cars reduces carbon emissions by a third more than selling 28,000 EVs.”

Ultimately, Toyota's strategic decision to invest in gasoline-electric hybrids and bet on fuel cells in the long term is the reason that it isn't currently producing any electric cars. The once-innovative company that mainstreamed hybrid-electric technology is now a global laggard in electrification, and is using dubious logic to justify its gas-powered fleet on environmental grounds.

By no reasonable measure is Toyota's fleet more eco-friendly without a single all-electric model. Electric cars are cleaner and greener from cradle-to-grave, including battery production, and regardless of where they charge. 

[Read more here]

It's sad to see Toyota, which invented and successfully sold the first hybrid, losing its way so badly.  But it is a lesson for all legacy car makers.  EVs are the future.  If you aren't making them, you are going to be superseded by manufacturers who are.  The window is very short.  By 2022, EVs will be close to ICEVs in "sticker price".  And then it's game over.

Six key lifestyle changes to cut emissions

 From The Guardian 

People in well-off countries can help avert climate breakdown by making six relatively straightforward lifestyle changes, according to research from three leading institutions.

The study found that sticking to six specific commitments – from flying no more than once every three years to only buying three new items of clothing a year – could rein in the runaway consumption that is partially driving the climate crisis.

The research carried out by academics at Leeds University and analysed by experts at the global engineering firm Arup and the C40 group of world cities, found that making the six commitments could account for a quarter of the emissions reductions required to keep the global heating down to 1.5C.

The study was published on Monday alongside the launch of a new climate movement to persuade and support relatively well off people to make “The Jump” and sign up to the six pledges.

Tom Bailey, co-founder of the campaign said: “This ends once and for all the debate about whether citizens can have a role in protecting our earth. We don’t have time to wait for one group to act, we need ‘all action from all actors now’.”

Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its “bleakest warning yet”, saying the climate crisis was accelerating rapidly with only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages.

Bailey said as the world reaches the edge of ecological collapse, it needed a workable alternative to this ‘universal consumer society’ in the next decade.

“The research is clear that governments and the private sector have the largest role to play but it is also equally clear from our analysis that individuals and communities can make a huge difference.”

The Jump campaign asks people to sign up to take the following six “shifts” for one, three or six months:

•  Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste
•  Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year
•  Keep electrical products for at least seven years
•  Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years
•  Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold of your existing vehicle for longer
•  Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier

The campaign was officially kicked off on Saturday and Bailey said there was already a growing movement emerging in response to the evidence with Jump groups up and running around the country.

The research is based on a study by academics at Leeds University, Arup and the C40 group of leading cities which assesses the impact of consumption by people in the world’s leading cities.

Analysis of that data has found that the six steps set out above could cut global emissions by between 25% and 27%.

My own six recommendations are:

1. Become vegetarian or vegan.  ±15% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from animal husbandry
2. Buy your electricity from a green electricity provider.  Don't choose a provider that uses "offsets" to pretend it's green.  Offsets don't actually cut emissions, and are often scams.  ±30% of global emissions come from electricity generation.
3. If you can afford it, and own your own home, put solar panels on your roof.  Payback periods vary from country to country, but the worst I've seen is 10 years.  
4. Get an EV.  For most of us that's still too expensive, but an ordinary hybrid, like the Toyota Corolla hybrid, will still cut your transport emissions by 40-50% and only costs 7% more than the petrol version, while it will save you its extra up-front cost in lower fuel bills within a couple of years.  ±20% of global emissions come from transport.
5. Fly as infrequently as possible.  Including the warming effect of NOX (nitrous oxide -- N2O) emissions from jet engines, flying is responsible for ± 5% of greenhouse gas emissions.
6. Vote for the political party which has a genuine plan to cut emissions in your country and region.  Once again, watch out for vague promises and distant targets.  To avoid temperatures rising by more than 1.5 degrees C we need to cut emissions by 5% compound every year for the next 50 years.  Realistic climate policies won't just be grand statements of resolve, but concrete actions year-by-year.  Examples: "we will phase out coal generation by 2030", or "we will set rising target percentage sales for EVs/PHEVs/hybrids for the next 10 years", or "we will introduce a price on carbon". 

The climate bathtub

It seems more and more clear that emissions have peaked.  

China, responsible for 25% of global emissions, installed as much solar last year as the rest of the world combined.  It looks as if it's going to do the same this year.  In addition, EVs now make up 48% of China's new car sales, and at the current growth rate, this will reach 60% within a year and 70% within 2 years.  This has led several respected analysts to conclude that Chinese emissions have passed a secular peak, or will do so this year, after a big jump in emissions as growth resumed after Covid lockdowns.  Emissions for Europe and the USA have been falling for a couple of decades now, and the reason global emissions continued to rise was emissions from China.  If Chinese emissions have peaked, even if the year-to-year decline is small, global emissions have prolly peaked too.

The second reason is more general.  Battery prices have halved this year.  Last year, Lazard estimated that adding 4 hours of storage to solar would add $14/MWh to the cost.  With battery prices halving, this means that we add 8 hours of storage to the cost of solar for the same cost (more or less) as we added 4 hours previously.  This will mean that between latitudes 35 or 40 north and south, we can run the grid on solar, more cheaply than on coal.  The plunge in battery costs also means that EVs are now cheaper than petrol cars, not just to buy but to run.  For example, in Australia, BYD plans to introduce an EV which will sell for less than A$30K, about the same as the cheapest Toyota petrol Corolla.  EV sales will, as in China, completely replace petrol (gasoline) sales.

Over the next 15 to 20 years, electricity generation and land transport will mostly transition to carbon-free.   As coal power stations in developed countries age, they'll be shuttered, not just because of environment reasons but because they will be too costly. "Wait a minute," I hear you cry, "what about the extra electricity demand from EVs?"   Because solar plus storage will be cheaper than coal and baseload gas, this extra demand won't be met by building new coal power stations, but by new solar, rooftop and utility scale.  

Since generation and land transport make up roughly 50% of global emissions, that means emissions will halve over the next 2 decades.   If you add in replacing oil and gas heating for homes and offices with electric heat pumps, and efforts to switch to carbon-free steel, the decline over the next 15 to 20 years could be 60 or 70%.

That's good, right?  It means temperatures have peaked and will start falling this year?  Not quite, no.

Imagine the atmosphere as a giant bath.  The level of water in the bath represents the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.  The taps are on full, day and night, filling the bath.  There is a tiny trickle out of the bath, caused by natural weathering (CO2 dissolves in water, and reacts with rock to produce carbonates, which removes that CO2 from the atmosphere).  Even if we turned off the taps completely, the bath would take a 1,000 years or more to empty.  

Global temperatures are proportional to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Or, taking the differential, the rise in temperatures is proportional to the level of emissions.  In other words, using our bath analogy, to the flow of water out of the taps.  So even though the flow of water out of the taps is going to fall from now on (the levl of emissions has peaked), the level of water in the bath will continue to rise, just more slowly (temperatures will keep on rising).   If we halve emissions, we will halve the decadal increase in temperatures.  But they will still be rising (just more slowly).  To stop temperatures rising altogether, we need to stop the level of bathwater rising.  In other words, we need to cut emissions to below the trickle escaping past the bath plug, the trickle caused by natural processes.  

What about "negative emissions" or "carbon offsets"?   These are the equivalent, in our analogy, of taking a scoop of water from the bath, and pouring it into a hole in the ground.  Except, it's not a scoop, but a tiny doll's house teaspoon.  And obviously, if the taps are on full, it's completely pointless.  Once the taps are turned off, then, yes, it starts making sense.  But we'll still need something bigger than a miniature teaspoon to do anything worthwhile.

Yes, it is good news.  The taps are being turned down, and one day, in perhaps 30 or 40 years, will be finally turned off altogether.  But temperatures will go on rising, but the good news is that they will be rising more slowly.  If we do in fact halve emissions over the next 15 to 20 years, we will also halve the decadal rise in temperatures.  And if we halve them again over the next 15 years, we will halve the decade-by decade rise again, and so will avoid a 2 degree rise since pre-industrialisation, taken (for practical reasons) to be the average temperatures from 1850 to 1900.  

A 2 degree rise is bad news.  But it is better than 2.5 or 3 degrees.  Much, much better.  Cautious optimism is in order.

Electric vehicle sales triple in Oz

From The Guardian:

Electric vehicle sales in Australia more than tripled last year but were still far lower than in a majority of developed countries, industry data shows.

The Electric Vehicle Council says 6,718 full electric and hybrid plug-in vehicles were sold in 2019, up from 2,216 the year before. Sales of combustion engine cars fell 7.8% over that period.

The release of the industry group data follows Britain this week announcing it would ban new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2035. The Electric Vehicle Council said the spike in sales in Australia from a low base suggested consumers wanted the technology despite it being yet to receive the support offered elsewhere.

“The good news is that the number of Australians buying EVs is surging despite a lack of government incentives or support,” the council’s chief executive, Beyhad Jafari, said. “The bad news is that even with this strong growth, EVs still only represent 0.6% of sales. That compares poorly with 3.8% of sales in Europe and 4.7% of sales in China.”

Support for EVs was a significant point of difference between the major parties at last year’s federal election. Labor promised a target of 50% new car sales being electric by 2030.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, accused the opposition of wanting to “end the weekend” by forcing people out of four-wheel drives, while the minister for small business, Michaelia Cash, told tradies only the Coalition would “save their utes”.

[Read more here]

Note that these data do not include simple hybrids (HEVs), which are making up an increasing portion of sales:

Customer deliveries of Toyota’s hybrid electric vehicles in 2019 are on forecast to be well in excess of 20,000 vehicles, doubling the total of 11,590 hybrid vehicles sold in 2018.

Hybrid deliveries this year are expected to exceed 10 per cent of Toyota’s overall sales, up from 5.3 per cent last year and 3.9 per cent in 2017.

In the first fourth months of this year, sales of Toyota’s hybrid vehicles have risen by 85 per cent compared with the same period a year ago.

The 2019 tally of 5,613 hybrid cars represents almost 8.7 per cent of the brand’s total sales and compares with 3,029 hybrid cars or 4.4 per cent of sales at the same time last year. In April 2019, Toyota sold 1,458 hybrid vehicles or 9.6 per cent of its total sales for the month.

Hybrids account for almost half of all Camry sales this year (45.4 per cent), up from 39.6 per cent last year and 20.7 per cent in 2017.

A similar trend has emerged for Corolla, with hybrid variants now comprising 31.4 per cent of 2019 sales compared with 12.5 per cent last year and 5.8 per cent in 2017.

[Read more here]

There are no easily accessible data for EV sales in OZ, but this (old) chart from RenewEconomy shows how sales have progressed since the introduction of the Nissan Leaf in 2011.  Again, these data exclude hybrids.  Sales of 6700 (but including plug-in hybrids) in 2019 is a big jump on the 1400 in 2016.   Sales of cars with an electric engine (EVs, PHEVs, HEVs) are likely to double every year from now on.

The pattern, duplicated across many countries, is clear.  Petrol/diesel sales are slumping, prolly because consumers are waiting to buy an EV/PHEV/HEV, while sales of cars with some sort of electric engine are exploding.  And many consumers are settling for HEVs because EVs are still too costly but with a hybrid, they can still cut their greenhouse gas emissions as well as their petrol bills. 

Is there any hope at all?

There are some extraordinary things happening in the renewables space.

1. Solar power is up a lot (it varies by country) almost everywhere.  The cost of solar continues to decline, and because the cost of storage is plunging, "firming" solar electricity is becoming easier and cheaper.

2. CATL has introduced improved sodium-ion batteries. Sodium is roughly 1/5th as costly as lithium, so sodium-ion batteries will be much cheaper than lithium-ion. They also have a much longer life, theoretically allowing cars to travel 3 million miles before the batteries wear out. These new batteries will have 10,000 cycles, which will mean that even if they are charged and discharged 100% every day, they will still last 27 years.  Fantastic for stationary (grid) storage.  

3. EVs continue to make up an ever larger proportion of total car sales. In China, 1/3rd of the world's car market, they are +-50%, heading straight towards 100%. EVs (from China) now have the same sticker price as petrol cars. For example, here in Oz, the cheapest BYD Dolphin costs the same as the cheapest petrol Toyota Corolla. As battery prices plunge, EVs are only going to become ever more attractive.


Emissions from land transport and electricity generation are just under 50% of total global emissions. It seems plausible that these will have nearly ended by 2040, putting us halfway down the road to zero emissions. We need to do more (stop eating red meat, replace gas/oil heating with heat pumps/electrical heating, fix cement, steel and air travel, stop land clearing) to bend that curve towards a better outcome, but for the first time in years, I feel optimistic that we at last have a chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.  

What can you do to help?  You can cut your personal emissions, by as much as 20-30%, by becoming vegetarian, or at least, stopping eating beef and mutton, and not using milk.   If mankind did that, we would cut emissions by +-70%, adding together the decline in emissions from agriculture and transport and electricity generation.  The more we cut emissions, the sooner temperatures will stop rising.

It has been possible to argue that anything we do is pointless, because China's emissions have just kept on rising.  But this year, or next, China's emissions, as the country installs more and more solar, and EV sales continue to explode, will peak and start falling, and that particular excuse for inaction will disappear.

Let's do this.  

Just stop burning fossil fuels!

 Honestly, it's quite simple. We have to stop burning fossil fuels to stop global temperatures rising.

Simple in concept, but not in execution.  We have to replace a couple of thousand coal power stations with wind, solar, and nuclear power.   And we have to transition our whole car and light truck fleet to EVs.  1.6 billion of them!   And find ways to power air travel with renewable fuels.  Electric planes aren't quite there yet.  Oh, and then there's cement and steel, where the manufacturing processes emit CO2, quite apart from the energy used.   But, essentially, if we can halve emissions, we will also halve the decade-by-decade rise in global temperatures from +-0.2 degrees to +-0.1 degrees.  Which will give us more time to reduce emissions from those harder sectors.

Together, land transport and electricity generation contribute roughly 50% of emissions, globally.  And the good news is that in these sectors, the clean energy alternatives are cheaper than fossil fuels.

For example, in Australia, BYD now sells an electric car (EV) which costs the same as a Toyota Corolla. Since EVs are 4 times as efficient as petrol cars (most of the fuel burnt in a conventional petrol engine is wasted as heat, and isn't used to drive the car forward) they are already much cheaper to run than petrol cars. Now, they're cheaper to buy as well. What's more, when the regulations are promulgated (why so slow, Federal Government?) you will be able to run your house on the electricity in your car. The BYD will have roughly 45 kWh of stored electricity in its battery. Average daily household use in Australia is 15 kWh. So you'll be able to charge your EV when power is cheap (midday, and again after 10 pm) and use it when power is expensive (4 pm to 9 pm). So for the same price as a petrol car, you'll get a giant household battery, cheaper car fuel bills, and much-reduced electricity bills.

This has been made possible by the collapse in battery costs. And that deep, and continuing, plunge has been parallelled by the fall in solar panel costs. While high latitudes will never be able to run on solar alone, in low and mid-latitudes, such as Australia, we will be able to run our grid on 100% solar electricity, combining it with 6 or 8 hours of storage. And EVs will be part of that revolution, as every household and every business gets them.

All these trends are being driven by market forces. Extremely competitive Chinese manufacturers are driving down prices. BYD spends as much on research as its total profit. CATL, the world's largest battery manufacturer, has introduced a sodium-ion battery. Sodium is a lot cheaper than lithium, and is also much safer. The same vigorous competition is driving down solar panel costs.

That's not to say we're out of the woods. There are powerful regressive forces which want to delay the transition, and useful idiots yelling loudly about how unfair it all is. Bring back steam trains!

Plus there are methane emissions from cattle and sheep, and CO2 from cement and steel. Methane is 80 times as potent a greenhouse gas, over a 10 year horizon (after which it decays into CO2) There's air transport, and sea transport, and home heating (bring on heat pumps!).

However, we must move faster.  The seas are dying, and half the tree of life is going extinct.  We should attempt to halve emissions by 2035, and halve them again by 2045.  With costs of solar and batteries plunging, that's achievable.

Global sea temperatures accelerating

 From Prof Eliot Jacobson

In case you had any doubt, the near perfect fit of the quadratic trendline makes it clear: global sea surface temperatures are accelerating.

The current rate of warming is about 0.32°C/decade, which comes out to somewhere around 275 million Hiroshima bombs worth of ocean heating in 2025.

 

 What can governments do to reverse this trend?

1.  Ban the sale of new pure petrol/diesel/gasoline cars immediately.   There are plenty of hybrids and EVs in production right now.  For example, in Oz, Toyota has already stopped selling the petrol-only Corolla.
2. Give electricity utilities 5 years to get to a minimum of 60% renewables and 10 to get to 90%.  
3. Remove all oil subsidies
4. Tax carbon emissions, and return the tax via a monthly cheque to all residents.

What can you do?

1. Give up meat.  This will cut your personal emissions by 1/3.
2. Buy your electricity from a 100% green supplier (In Australia) or Green Power Options (in the US)
3. If you can afford it, put solar panels on your roof.  
4. If you can, replace gas or oil heating with heat pumps.  The newest heat pumps work even in sub-zero temperatures.
5. Replace your car with an EV when your current car gives up the ghost.  Failing that, a plug-in hybrid (PHEV).  Use public transport as much as you can; fly as little as you can.

This will cut your personal emissions by 60 to 80%.

We face catastrophe.  We must act now, individually and collectively.  Before it is too late.

US EV sales up 120%, or, Tesla triumphs

In August, sales of EVs (electric vehicles) and PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) rose 120% over sales in August 2017.  Most of the jump is due to the Model 3.  Without Model 3 sales, total EV/PHEV sales would be up just 12.5% on last year.  In fact, 63% of August EV sales were from the three Tesla models.   In August, the Tesla Model 3 was the 5th biggest seller of ALL US cars, behind only the Toyota Camry, the Honda Civic, the Honda Accord and the Toyota Corolla Family.  Let that penetrate for a minute.  An electric car, from an upstart manufacturer, is the 5th bestselling car in the US.  And it doesn't even advertise.  And you have to wait months for it to be delivered.  And the MSM has been spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about whether Tesla will survive, whether it's profitable, oh, and why doesn't Musk just give up?

I repeat: a car from a supposedly bankrupt company, with a months-long waiting list, with a new technology, and not cheap, is the 5th best selling car in America.  This must be giving legacy car manufacturers the heeby-jeebies.  What will happen when Tesla introduces the base Model 3, costing $35,000?  What will happen when Tesla expands its production lines, again?  What will happen when proud new owners give friends and family test drives in their new, beaut Model 3?  How long before the Model 3 is the best-selling car in America?  Will you still be buying oil stocks?  Will you still be holding legacy car company stocks?

I'm sure many of you think I've been far too optimistic about EVs.  Yet here we are, only half way through Tesla's model 3 ramp, and a year away from the Tesla Model Y and the Tesla pick-up truck.  And the Tesla Shanghai gigafactory.  Tesla is triumphing.   EVs are 2.5% of total car and light truck sales in the USA, double the percentage of just 12 months ago.  They will double again over the next 18 months and again in the 18 months after.  Or it might be, in the next 12 months and the 12 months after that.  The S-curve is flexing up.  

By 2026 or 7, EVs will be nearly 100% of total global car sales.  10 or 12 years later they will make up 95% of the world's car fleet.

Note steep acceleration.  

Percentage has more than doubled in one year! 
At this rate the percentage will reach 9% by the end of  2021,
36% by 2024.

Smoothed growth rate 90% year on year. 

Note logarithmic scale.  A straight line implies a constant growth rate

Percentage now the same as in the US

Growth slowing to a mere 55% per annum. 
Just about doubling every 18 months.  Will reach 100% penetration within 9 or 10 years.

➥  Source of basic data Inside EVs.  My seasonal adjustment and smoothing.  My charts.