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Ford is Throwing $11 Billion at Its Electric Car Problem (theverge.com)
Ford said on Monday it will boost its investment in electric vehicles to $11 billion in the next five years, more than doubling a previous commitment. Company's chairman Bill Ford said the car maker would have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its range by the same period. It comes as countries around the world put more pressure on car makers to rein in carbon emissions. From a report: It was a dramatic escalation in Ford's crosstown rivalry with General Motors, which has seen its stock prices rise thanks to its commitments to both electrification and autonomy. GM has said it plans to roll out at least 20 new electric cars by 2023, a goal that puts it in a position to bring battery-powered driving to the mainstream. Last week, it unveiled a concept autonomous car without steering wheel or pedals. Meanwhile, the Blue Oval has had a challenging 2017. It remains strongly profitable, but its sale are stagnant, its costs have increased faster than expected, and its margins have failed to meet targets.
Thanks, Tesla ! Without you, those feet-dragger's would have never done this.
One thing that gets glossed over is how in the world the power grid is going to handle all these electric cars. Most transformers you see on poles are designed to cool down at night when usage goes down, exactly when people will be plugging their electric vehicles in. This is going to require MAJOR power infrastructure investment, and other than industry insider news letters I've not seen many high profile stories on this. Great, we have the cards. Now we need a grid infrastructure that can support it!
CARB (California Air Resources Board) introduced a ZEV mandate. Zero Emissions Vehicle - mostly EVs though Toyota has a hydrogen vehicle on the market. It requires that a certain percentage of each automaker's sales be ZEVs each year. That percentage increases every year (currently about 2%, supposed to be about 15% by 2025). If an automaker fails to hit that percentage or buy enough credits from a company which has exceeded the percentage, it is banned from selling vehicles in California. And since about a dozen other states automatically adopt CARB's guidelines, that automaker would be banned from selling cars in about a third of the U.S. by population. This is why every automaker has developed an EV - none of them want to be banned from 1/3 of the U.S.
Tesla is actually subsidized by this. It always has ZEV credits, so its bottom line is buoyed by selling those to other automakers. That's also why production of the Tesla 3 has been so slow to ramp up. They won't want to produce more of them per year than they're able to sell credits for. If they can't sell the ZEV credit for a Tesla 3, they have to bear the full manufacturing costs for the vehicle themselves.
CARB actually first tried the ZEV mandate in 2000. That's why GM invested half a billion dollars developing the EV-1. Come late 1999, GM was the only automaker with a viable vehicle which could meet the ZEV mandate. They stood to make billions back selling the ZEV credits and licensing the technology to other car companies. But at the last minute the other automakers convinced CARB that technology wasn't yet ready to meet the ZEV mandate, and hybrids were the best technical solution for now. GM destroying all the EV-1s makes a lot more sense when you put it in this context. Overnight CARB turned GM's half billion dollar investment from a gold mine into money down the toilet, then had the temerity to ask GM if it could share the technology with California (so it could be given to other automakers). It's no wonder GM destroyed the EV-1s and buried the R&D so CARB couldn't get their hands on it.
Do note that this means whether or not EVs are economically viable remains to be seen (whether other automakers are feet-draggers, or if CARB is just pushing the market into unviable space). The mandate is an arbitrary bureaucrat-fixed percentage, not a market one. So if the market doesn't want to buy enough EVs to meet the mandate, automakers have to cut prices on EVs until enough of them sell (or are leased) to meet the mandate. That's why a couple years ago VW was offering a 3-year lease on an eGolf for $79/mo with no money down - they were short on ZEV credits that year. And that's why the best EV deals are in California - only EVs sold/leased in California count towards the ZEV mnadate. 2016 and 2017 didn't see as good deals, so EV sales seem closer on track with the ZEV mandate those years. But climbing from 2% to 15% in 7 years is a very steep increase in ZEV sales. If what the market wants deviates from the ZEV mandate, it will show up in the EV discounts. The greater the deviation, the steeper the EV discounts will be.
What you're pointing out is that urban areas are designed to discourage private automobile ownership by individuals - often very intentionally. There isn't really any kind of automobile an auto manufacturer can build to change that. For now, they'll probably focus on development for the (fairly large) suburban market.
That said, autonomous vehicles should eventually be able to make electrics more practical in the cities. These cars won't be owned by individuals, but rather by corporations or local transit authorities. Live in the city, but run into a situation where walking, biking, or busing won't cut it? Just bring up an app, book your travel, and a nice, autonomous, electric vehicle will swing by to pick you up and take you where you need to go. When it's running low on power, it can return to one of several "car barns" designed to hold and charge the vehicles. This environment still provides a great opportunity for auto manufacturers to evolve and make large sums of money.
I know it's a huge hurdle to get many urban folk to give up personal ownership of an automobile, but with things trending away from "I go to X location to get the things I need" and toward "The things I need are delivered to my home" I think there will be less and less need (and therefor less desire) to own cars. This will be furthered as companies (hopefully) continue to expand work-from-home options and eliminate old fashioned dress codes (making commutes on feet, bikes, mopeds easier and more attractive). I feel like the auto makers that will win out in the end will be those that find solutions for shipping/delivery vehicles and shared transportation services.