This is a really really long good article. So I am going to shut up and let you read. I have not felt this good in a long time.
Feature: China and the New Energy Economy
London (Platts)–31 Oct 2017 1239 pm EDT/1639 GMT
There is an increasingly inescapable sense that an energy transition of enormous proportions is taking place. The number of ‘bans’ announced on Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles is growing, even if governments are placing them relatively far out on the political horizon.
More and more car manufacturers are taking note and shifting R&D spending into Electric Vehicles (EVs), a move which has profound implications for the development curves, and thus future cost, of EVs versus ICE vehicles.
In October, US automaker General Motors said that it would launch two new pure electric models in 2018 and a further 18 by 2023.
Its competitor Ford announced the creation of a new internal team to “think big and move fast” in order to accelerate the electrification of its auto production. Both are some way behind their European counterparts.
It is not hard to see why such decisions are being made now. While the number of EVs on the road remains just a fraction of the total parc, global sales are growing by about 40% year-on-year, making EVs the biggest growth story in the auto market in decades.
And, if governments are going to regulate against ICE vehicles and subsidize EVs, thereby changing the consumer choices which otherwise might be made, then what other path is there to tread?
CHINESE WHISPERS
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Go there and read. Rejoice. More next week.
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