Things are revving up for the electric vehicle industry with the help of EV charging.
Battery Prices Falling
From 2010 to 2019, lithium-ion battery prices, when looking at the battery pack as a whole, have fallen from $1,100 per kilowatt-hour to $156/kWh—an 87% cut in less than 10 years and from 2018 to 2019 alone, a cut of 13%.
Battery prices are the significant driver in the cost of manufacturing electric vehicles and so these reductions will see electric cars become a viable option for more and more people.
With such a decrease in the price of production and the recent Ban of Petrol/Diesel cars to come into effect in Ireland by 2030 , many analysts are suggesting that this decade is set to be the ‘Electric Cars Decade’.
Battery prices are estimated to continuously drop and by 2024 to be as low as $100/kWh. This means Electric car prices will continuously fall yearly and by 2024 will match the price of diesel/petrol cars. The EV:iCE Singularity!
Budget Allocation For EVs
The Irish Budget for 2020 will see:
- €36m allocated in 2020, compared to €18m in the 2019 budget, to incentivise uptake further.
- The government will double the number of home chargers installed, and the fast charger network will also double in 2020.
- Further roll out the nationwide network of on-street AC chargers.
Petrol/Diesel Ban
Transport emissions accounted for over 20% of Ireland’s emissions in 2018 and as part of a strategy to protect the environment, the Government is drafting new laws that would ban the sale of new petrol and diesel car registrations by 2030. The aim of these new laws is to ensure that, in 10 years’ time, one third of vehicles on the roads are electric.
This would effectively mean 936,000 electric vehicles on the roads by 2030, a massive increase from just over 10,000 electric vehicles currently on our roads, including battery operated and hybrid vehicles. Some might say that these targets are wildly speculative and perhaps a little unrealistic but even if the country only reaches 50% of this target, we are going to see a massive increase in the amount of Electric Vehicles on our roads (and as a result a massive demand for Electric Vehicle Chargers!)
Things have never been so prosperous for Ireland and for Electric cars; with the increased budget and the petrol/diesel ban coming into effect at the end of this decade, the popularity of electric cars will skyrocket.
Range Anxiety No Longer An Issue?
From Wikipedia:
Range anxiety is the fear that a vehicle has insufficient range to reach its destination and would thus strand the vehicle’s occupants
While this anxiety can be a very real thing, technology is progressing, dramatically increasing the range of E.Vs and with the understanding that habits must change slightly, Range Anxiety is becoming less of a worry.
Soon, there will no longer be ‘Range Anxiety’ as the range of E.V’s is constantly growing and with efficiency improvements as well, these cars are capable of easily doing 400 – 600 km’s on a full charge. For most daily usage, that means the occasional overnight charge is plenty. With SEAI grants in place to help with the purchase of an E.V or upgraded charger for your home, it is without a doubt the time to make the change.
The number of public charging stations is also set to be doubled by the end of 2020 making over 2,500 stations available throughout Ireland allowing even the most anxious of E.V drivers to chill out and charge up over a cup of coffee. While public charging stations are important, it is home and work where most of the charging is done and Businesses are becoming more and more aware of this and are installing charging stations for their employees, clients and guests.
The coming decade will surely see a dramatic rise in the number of Electric Vehicles on our roads, the only question is how dramatic.
Would you like to learn more about the existing options for charging your E.V at home? Please call us now on 1800 99 88 77 or email us at info@epower.ie to find out more.
