Why haven’t electric cars completely replaced gasoline cars?

Ten years have passed since Tesla began delivering the first units of the Model S, the world’s first luxury electric sedan. Since then, the automobile sector is undergoing a revolution to leave combustion engines in oblivion.

A revolution that is unstoppable, despite the fact that it continues to face many obstacles.

There is still a long way to go until all the cars sold abandon gasoline or diesel as fuel in favor of alternatives that contribute less to the climate crisis, such as electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.

But many things have already changed in the sector.

According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global sales of electric vehicles last year amounted to 6.6 million units, around double that of 2020, and 5,500% more than in 2012, when they were sold about 120,000.

Because when the Model S hit the market, manufacturers such as General Motors (GM), Ford, Toyota and Nissan were already selling electric or hybrid vehicles.

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At the beginning of 2022, the IEA estimated that around 16.5 million electrified vehicles (electric and hybrid) existed worldwide, three times more than in 2018.

China is the leading country in number of electrified vehicles (EVs) in circulation. Just last year 3.3 million units were sold in the Asian giant, 50% of the world total. In Europe the sales figure was 2.3 million dollars. And the remaining million corresponded almost exclusively to the United States.

EV production is also dominated so far by China and Europe, while the US is the third country.

But these figures are still a fraction of total car sales in the world, which in 2021 reached 66.7 million cars, after falling in 2020 to 63.8 million due to the effects of the pandemic. In 2019, global sales of all types of cars were 74.9 million units.

In other words, last year, sales of electrified vehicles accounted for around 10% of the total.

But ten years after Tesla put the first Model S units on the streets of the United States, the world’s automakers have assumed that the future is electric and have plans to completely abandon the assembly of automobiles in the coming years. combustion.

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General Motors (GM), traditionally the largest producer of automobiles in the United States, and which owns the Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick brands, has committed to stop selling combustion vehicles by 2035.

To do this, the manufacturer has allocated 35,000 million investments during the 2020-2025 period for the development and production of electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles.

“Climate change is real and we want to be part of the solution by putting everyone in an electric vehicle,” GM President and CEO Mary Barra said in July 2021.

Ford, Stellantis, Volkswagen, Nissan, Toyota and other manufacturers have similar plans.

Now that Tesla has turned electric vehicles into a product of desire and social statuswhich is accelerating the level of acceptance of these cars among the general public, the biggest problem manufacturers have in selling electric cars is solving mass production.

The most critical component of an EV is the battery. The most used batteries so far by manufacturers are lithium-ion batteries, practically the same ones used in electronic devices such as mobile phones or laptops.

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In addition to lithium-ion batteries, there are nickel-metal hydride batteries, lead-acid batteries and supercapacitors.

But the production of enough batteries to equip tens of millions of vehicles that have to be manufactured each year to replace combustion vehicles It is a logistical headache that companies have not yet solved.

In the last two years, all carmakers have rushed to sign deals with mining companies that extract cobalt and lithium, the two main components of batteries, and with other companies to secure supplies of the necessary materials.

The availability of batteries is not the only barrier to the rapid production of mass quantities of electric vehicles. The infrastructure for fast battery chargers is still insufficient and, of course, cannot be compared with the networks of gas stations that exist throughout the world.

And finally, the other obstacle to the widespread use of electric cars is public acceptancewhich still has to better understand how they work and what advantages they offer, beyond savings on fuel purchases.

Source: Elcomercio

James

I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years and have written for various news outlets. I currently work as an author at 24 News Recorder, mostly covering entertainment news. I have a keen interest in the industry and enjoy writing about the latest news and gossip. I am also a member of the National Association of Journalists.