My wager was aimed to the world market because it seemed to offer the best chance of coming true. Here in North America, the inertia of the existing infrastructure and old habits will probably keep EV penetration below 10% for many decades to come. We can remind ourselves that 120 years ago, what was more widespread: distribution of liquid fuels for combustion or distribution of electricity? The answer is liquid fuels. The Ford Motor Company had already churned out millions of Model T's and A's before the Rural Electrification Act was signed to actually make electricity accessible throughout the USA.
There's a lot of
reasons excuses to resist an EV in North America.
- Small gas-powered cars are cheap (less than a year's salary for most people)
- Many used cars available which run on gasoline
- More knowledge about gasoline engine power in common culture
- All those gas stations
- The "shopping cart" effect.
For myself, I've overcome all of the problems above, except the last one. And then Tesla came along and eliminated the last problem.
Aside: I remember an acquaintance showing me his Mitsu i-MEV. I had to stifle a laugh because it clearly was not a robust vehicle nor did it have any comfort inside. I simply could not accept that sort of POS shopping cart since I have an Acura TSX to compare it to.
But what if I had never owned a TSX? What if I didn't know anyone else who had ever had as nice a car as an Acura? Well then, first the i-MEV looks a little bit better than the other cars around me, and second, what I just said also implies that there AREN'T nice cars in my area like the Acura.
Where am I going? Drop the North American blinders and look at the rest of the world. An no, not Europe, I am talking about
TWO BILLION PEOPLE IN ASIA. My wager is actually about the economic development of India and China.
The majority of vehicles in these countries are still tiny awful beaters. Replacing them with anything new or even 10 years old would be a major improvement for the person buying. They'd be interested in an EV that offers a step up, and a puny box that I would turn up my nose to could be an attractive choice to them. There was a time in North America when a Ford Model T was a nice car... the people in Asia are not going to take 50 years to go from Model T to the Corvette.
The other leg up for EV's is that the next few decades will see many of the people in that world region raising their standard of living by at least an order of magnitude. They will want cars. Their countries have not broadly invested in any particular automobile type. Electric is just as good gasoline in an area that absolutely no automobiles at all yet. Furthermore, as these Asian countries continue to industrialize and develop, the distribution of energy in the form of electricity will have use in all parts of life. Distributing supplies of energy as gasoline will just supply cars. Useful, but universally useful. That's actually a leg-up for electric vehicles.
When I made the bet last year, nobody had any idea this virus was coming. I now believe the virus will cause a considerable amount of industrial redistribution in the world. If that sounds like a point against "globalization" well it's got a life of its own now. Not even the most extreme US policy is going to completely set back the enormous depth of industrial power that the countries of Asia now have. Their economies seem to be self-sustaining now, whether the USA decides to collectively shoot themselves in the head, they'll do fine for the next few decades, not. The virus may actually be the event that makes this fact clear to everyone in the world, and, hopefully, re-think what globalization really means to us (in the west).
So I'm still confident that the nations of Asia alone are sufficiently stable and strong to make up the world market of EV's that will continue to grow, and has incentive to grow for the next many decades.
