Battery electric vehicles and climate change
Max Hamilton
Our challenge
Unless the world can find solutions to reduce the increasing volume of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, time is relentlessly ticking down towards climate-change Armageddon. Technological solutions, discovered by scientists and adopted by industry, are perhaps more likely to drive tangible change than repeated political posturing, and many ideas are surfacing (see Hawken’s Drawdown , 2018). But which ones should be focused on, and which ones should be disregarded? Such questions become critical given the sheer volume of forces that need to come together – across technological innovation, consumer behaviour, industry adoption, infrastructure change, and government policy. With such a colossal challenge ahead, the world needs to marshal its scant resources – politicians ’, businesses’ and consumers’ attention; financial muscle; and R&D brain power – to drive solutions that offer the best possible returns on investment. Many global leaders recognize that our planet’s future depends on meeting this challenge, while expressing deep concern about our ability to respond: German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2020 that delivery is becoming a ‘ matter of survival ’ , while Bill Gates in interview has lamented ‘I don’t see anything worthy of the word plan ’ in the battle against climate change (Wallace-Wells, 2019). Indeed, Gates throws down the gauntlet: ‘ A plan involves looking at all the sources, electricity, transport, industry, buildings, and land use/agriculture and really saying, “ Okay, what are the possible paths that get you to these dramatic reductions, and thereforewhat are the missing inventions? ”’ I have sought to take up the challenge that Gates has issued through an extended investigation into the ongoing case-study of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as a substitutive technology for the carbon- spewing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to explore what has driven success to date, and the challenges that need to be overcome. But beyond this, I have used this examination to identify five rules for new technology success; rules that we will be wise to understand as we examine further solutions to tackle our global challenge, and that can act as a checklist to determine actions that need to be taken now to ensure all such solutions offer the greatest chance of having material and accelerated impact.
This rulebook is comprehensive, but also easy to remember. Simply put, new technologies must:
1.
Offer a path to material impact in the battle against climate change.
2.
Deliver and improve on existing customer propositions.
3. 4.
Provide manufacturers with clear incentives to drive their adoption.
Have a supportive ecosystem and infrastructure.
5.
Be backed by government regulation to support all the other rules.
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