Electric cars will rule the future

The head of Volkswagen core brand Herbert Diess says the goal is “to fundamentally change Volkswagen” as it bounces back from a scandal over cars rigged to cheat on diesel emissions tests. The plan foresees new investments in electric-car technology and in software that would enable new ways of using and sharing cars over the longer term. (Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa via AP)

The head of Volkswagen core brand Herbert Diess says the goal is “to fundamentally change Volkswagen” as it bounces back from a scandal over cars rigged to cheat on diesel emissions tests. The plan foresees new investments in electric-car technology and in software that would enable new ways of using and sharing cars over the longer term. (Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa via AP)

Published Dec 6, 2016

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Pretoria - An electric vehicle revolution is set to hit many car markets around the world within less than 10 years.

Bert Witkamp, the secretary-general of the European electric vehicle association, said yesterday that China would by 2030 be producing about 40 million cars, of which between 40 percent to 50 percent would be electric cars.

Witkamp said the Chinese government had compiled a 450-page technical roadmap of what it called energy saving vehicles and of where it wants the automotive industry to go in the future.

“This is the official (Chinese) government strategy,” he said at the launch of the South African Electric Vehicle Industry Association (Evia).

Evia is endorsed by the Trade and Industry Department and will serve as a lobby group, enabling the industry to work effectively with the government and researchers to stimulate the sector.

Its founding members are BMW, Gridcars, Nissan, the South African National Energy Development Institute and Uyilo, a programme of the Technology Innovation Agency.

Witkamp said electric vehicle sales in Europe this year were expected to reach 200 000 units, with about half of those vehicles plug-in hybrids and the balance full electric vehicles.

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He said this would be the best year yet for electric vehicle promotion, with sales growing by about 20percent after almost 80percent to 90percent growth last year.

Witkamp said an example of the revolution and strategies in various countries was Finland, which had already decided that by 2030 all the vehicles sold in the country would be alternative fuel vehicles.

The Netherlands, a small country, already had more than 100000 electric vehicles on the road and had some very clear strong targets and by 2025, 50 percent of all new cars sold would be electric.

“That is eight years in the future, but shows how fast it goes,” he said.

Witkamp said Norway was expected to confirm next year that by 2025 virtually all new cars sold would be electric.

“We have to see what happens when we have an affordable full electric car offering. Tesla has more than 400 000 reservations for its Model 3. They hope to start production at the end of next year.

“From our perspective, we see some sort of a perfect storm building up and a very rapid transition to electric mobility within 10 years.

"It has to do with societal push, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel use,” he said.

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Witkamp said Volkwagen’s diesel engine scandal made it clear that the impact of cars and vehicles on air quality was five to 10 times higher than what people believed.

He conceded that electric vehicles were still too expensive, because of the battery price, but stressed the price of batteries had declined five fold in the five years “and that is not the end of it”.

“There are many examples of technology disruptions that we foresee. Nobody sees it happening and nobody believes it and then its there.

“Within 10 years in certain markets, young people will just not want to buy old technology anymore. Who wants these smelly, expensive, dirty combustion cars if you have an alternative?

“They will just not buy them anymore. They might not buy cars at all anymore, because they will do car sharing and other things. At the end, it’s about what people want,” he said.

Witkamp said there were still a lot of hurdles to be overcome, including the fact that electric vehicles were too expensive, the charging time was too long and there was insufficient charging infrastructure, but these problems were on the way to being solved.

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