Massachusetts Route 16 passes through a number of pleasant, and one of them is the old town of Holliston. On the beautiful green lawn in the center of the town, an almost brand-new electric truck Rivian parked there, with the sign "for sale" placed on its front windshield. Apparently, someone bought the truck at one point, but quickly changed his or her mind and decided to sell it at a lawn sale. This will not be an easy feat, however. The vehicle has been there for so long that it seems like it will be hard to find a new owner.
There are two main defects of electric vehicles (EVs), the first is the short endurance mileage, and the second is the long charging time. Scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, and EV advocates have long sworn and kept promising that these problems can be solved. However, counting from the time of the unveiling of the Tesla Model S in March 2009, it has been 14 years since the mass launch of EVs, and these issues have yet to be satisfactorily resolved.
Indeed, 223 years have passed since the launch of the voltaic pile, the first electrical battery, and the basic principle of the battery has not changed. Even with the changes in the battery material subsequently, the problems of short usage time and long charging time remain true today. Therefore, from a theoretical and rational point of view, people have every reason to worry that problems that cannot be solved for such a long time may actually be ones that cannot be solved at all.
On the other hand, governments and politicians of various countries obviously do not appear to have the intention to give the automobile industry more time to choose the future technological development path.
The UK government, for instance, plans to achieve zero emissions for cars by 2040. Some radical British lawmakers think this timetable is too slow and advocate for a ban on the sale of fossil fuel-based vehicles by 2030. In fact, it's not just the UK government that has aggressive plans to adopt EVs. Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Slovenia, and the Netherlands also intend to phase out fossil fuel vehicles by 2030. Norway takes an even more drastic move to ban the sales of non-electric cars by 2025.
For these governments, being the pioneers in the future of EVs is an exhilarating political goal. Realistically or not, the feasibility of this goal does not appear to be a concern for many professional politicians. The issue of how capable is humankind to change the climate is one that they are least interested to discuss. Politicians certainly know that climate change and changing the climate are two logically distinct agendas. However, by merging them into one, it becomes a sensational political agenda. Although there is little concrete evidence, at least for now, relying on their rhetorical skill, some have convinced the rest of humanity that climate change is the original sin of humankind. Thus, those who are fortunate enough to be able to preemptively lead the war against such an original sin are tantamount to standing on the side of political correctness.
Whether the aggressive industrial policies proposed by various governments can be persistently implemented is the most critical cornerstone for the future development of the EV industry. It is clear that the industry does not depend on practical technology or reliable market demand, but only on the determination of politicians. So, to what extent can the will of various governments be trusted? Objectively speaking, there are indeed significant doubts in this regard.
All governments depend on taxes to sustain themselves. As of now, the various taxes and fees paid by fuel, diesel, and hybrid vehicles are a significant source of government revenue, while the tax revenue from EVs is minimal, and the governments may even have to subsidize them. If authorities around the world want to completely change the vehicles on the road, it means that their tax systems need to be greatly revised and no government has been adequately prepared for this.
One major challenge is that the oil and gas industry has accumulated a large number of employees, capital, and industrial output. The economic sectors and other industries involved in this industry may vastly exceed the expectations of politicians. These include oil fields, pipelines, industrial equipment manufacturing, electronics, shipbuilding, docks and ports, gas stations, land development, hotels and services, banks, risk investment, software development, consumption, etc. The alarming thing is that the popularization of EVs is not just an issue of a singular industrial product, but a problem of an industrial system or even a national economy. It appears that governments around the world have yet to come out with solutions to address this issue.
Any industry that suddenly booms has always been mainly focused on ideals, as it does not depend on reason, logic, and reality. The EV industry is precisely such an industry.
Therefore, now is also the most difficult time for companies operating based on old-school thinking, as the market is no longer determined by real and objective demand but by virtual factors such as concern for the future environment. This market pressure that evolved from real to virtual, combined with insistence from the government, has made Ford Motor Company the first well-known company to bow down to such changes. Ford has announced the cancellation of production of all models except for pickup trucks and commercial vehicles. This century-old car industry giant has now regressed into a purely truck manufacturer. Perhaps Ford had no other choice. Bill Ford, CEO of Ford Motor Company, said at the electric F150 Lightning pickup launch that Ford is determined to go "all-electric" and convert all of their classic models into EVs.
In reality, not only Ford but also Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation seems to be in a delicate and uncertain phase. Media reports suggest that Toyota's President Akio Toyoda's recent resignation is a formal admission of defeat, as the Japanese carmaker is preparing to make a last-minute turn in the electric car race. As Toyoda himself said, he is too "old-fashioned". The dawn of a new era has arrived, the era of EVs, so he decided to pass the baton to Koji Sato. This signifies that the Japanese company that has been ranked first in global sales of combustion engine cars for the past three years, and one of Tesla's early investors, has admitted defeat to Tesla.
The question is, is the global automobile industry really ready for the EV century? It does not seem so.
The EV century requires the automobile industry to become a subsidiary industry of the electronics industry. A fossil fuel vehicle requires at least 8 chips, while EV requires 8,000 chips. An EV is an electronic product, much like an iPhone, rather than a mechanical industrial product like a fuel vehicle. Looking at this way, an EV is actually a computer with a car's outer shell that can carry people with high-speed movement. Such a change is earth-shaking for the current automobile manufacturing industry, one that they can hardly go through smoothly.
Another astonishing change is the automobile manufacturing industry itself, as this industry may become one that is invested by venture capital in the future, changing from a blue-collar industry to a white-collar one. The very existence of the automobile industry was to meet the demands of the market in the past, yet now it is mainly to meet the needs of the capital market. Even in the case of Tesla, when the capital market expresses dissatisfaction, Elon Musk would become anxious. As it stands, the current market demand has become increasingly virtualized. In a society with excess capital, people have plenty of money, and the goods they buy with money are often not to meet objective needs, but more to satisfy the desire for consumption comparison and social status. Hence, there will always be a sufficient number of people who go after certain vain design concepts, and Tesla's success shows such characteristics.
The most critical issue is technology, especially battery technology. When it comes to artificial intelligence, this will be the relatively easy part. The main difficulty lies in material technology. While lithium-ion batteries have been upgraded for three generations, the "mileage anxiety" of EVs still seriously plagues all of its consumers, especially those who switch to EVs rashly. For a long time, solid-state battery technology was considered to be promising, and there are eye-catching claims from NASA to Nissan that they have overcome the difficulties of battery technology, where it can be industrialized and manufactured. However, those who are really familiar with the history of technological development will still be embarrassed by the so-called "technical breakthroughs".
As early as 2017, Fisker claimed to have a battery technical patent of with "500 miles range & 1-min charging". Henrik Fisker, founder company vowed to guarantee that solid-state batteries will be mass-produced in 2023, and the price is only one-third of that of lithium batteries. However, when the time comes to 2021, Fisker announced that it has completely abandoned the solid-state battery plan, as it is simply impossible. Fisker's painfully concluded, "it's the kind of technology where, when you feel like you're 90 percent there, you're almost there, until you realize the last 10 percent is much more difficult than the first 90," he said. "So we have completely dropped solid-state batteries at this point in time because we just don't see it materializing".
It is only 7 years before the policy deadline of banning the sale of fuel vehicles in 2030. If countries around the world still pursue radical environmental policies and insist on promoting the development of EVs monolithically, then under the double pressure of capital and policies, the global automobile industry may face catastrophe. Those commercial brands that people have been familiar with and trusted for decades or even a century, such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Ford, etc., might be vanishing. The century-old global automobile manufacturing industry is now at a critical moment.
This is not a mere sensational conclusion. Through the support of governments using public policy to create and promote market demand, and with the assistance of exclusionary policies, the global EV industry will be able to achieve great success. In fact, under such circumstances, other industries may have already been excluded by the policies of various countries, hence the success of the EV industry will be inevitable. This is a non-technical, non-market, ethically irrational industry success. Because if it is really for the urgency of environmental protection, then simply using hydrogen as the alternative for fossil-fueled automobile engines can obviously achieve zero emissions relatively easily and safely. The reason is that environmental protection on the surface is merely a justification for the continued prosperity of the capital market.
On the whole, the truth, as well as the eventual outcome of the global automobile manufacturing industry is still shrouded in obscurity, far from being in the vision of the general public.
