By David Sullivan, Head of Electrification business for ABB in Australia.
The electric vehicle market is making strides toward becoming a mainstream choice in the automotive industry. We are seeing continued progress in lowering technical barriers to adoption, but need greater energy behind education and policy. This will further ensure that benefits and broader opportunities, which are ripe and readily available, are optimised rather than overlooked.
Technology barriers are rapidly falling down – faster than perception and policy barriers
Common barriers to widespread adoption of electric vehicles relate to the upfront purchase and ongoing practicality of the driving experience for personal use – and initial investments and changing fleet management behaviours for commercial use.
In the personal electric vehicle space, the upfront purchase is led by the two factors of model and price. We have a fairly small range in Australia, though new models are entering every year. Many are still priced in the premium range, which was a core reason for electric vehicles being something of an early-adopter choice that was out of reach for most consumers. However, the market for vehicles under $65,000 is growing. With better upfront affordability, and an improved range of models to select from, we will see electric vehicles increasingly move out of consumers’ ‘consider later’ list into a ‘consider next’ list.
Then the driving experience comes into play. At the centre is the distance a vehicle can reliably cover on a single charge. Outstanding progress has been made on this front. A standard electric vehicle under $50,000 can offer an impressive 480km range [1], and we are seeing continual advancements in those distances. This is important because range anxiety is a very real factor and roadblock for many consumers – even though the distances most people cover in a day are substantially less than the range of today’s electric vehicles.
