Copper EV demand2 Oct 2019 14:31
When news hit that 18 explosive-rigged drones had knocked out two major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, instantly cutting global oil supply by more than 5 per cent, you can bet electric-car drivers worldwide collectively shrugged.
Gasoline prices to shoot up? No problem for vehicles that run on kilowatts.
Some speculated the news would help boost demand for electric vehicles. Energy expert Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, took to Twitter to declare that “the global shift to electric transportation just perceptibly accelerated.”
The drone attacks, he rightly argued, made Saudi refineries and pipelines “look like 20th century vulnerability in a 21st century threat landscape.”
In fairness, electricity infrastructure is also vulnerable to drone-like attacks, but I can’t think of a single target that would knock out anywhere near 5 per cent of the world’s power supply. The trend in the electricity market is a move toward smarter, more robust grids and smaller, more distributed forms of generation based on renewable energy and storage. Even nuclear power, crucial in the fight against climate change, is expected to become more modular and decentralized.
Electricity is also not traded on a global market. In the unlikely event that 5 per cent of supply could be disrupted, the economic impact would be felt locally. There would be no global price spikes or risk to international stability.
It helps that the vehicles destined to consume this electricity are getting better and less expensive. Tired claims that electric vehicles (EVs) take too long to charge, don’t have enough range, or aren’t powerful enough are based on lingering perceptions that don’t reflect the pace of innovation.
Take EV charging. Earlier this summer, the head of technology at European oil giant BP told Bloomberg News that EVs capable of being fully charged in five minutes are only two years away.
Ottawa-based GBatteries, for example, is almost there. It uses machine-learning algorithms to dramatically speed up the charging process using a method called “pulse” charging. Its near-term goal is to make charging an EV just as fast and easy as filling up a car’s gas tank.
Vehicle range is getting much longer, too. The Nissan Leaf had a range of about 120 kilometres when it was introduced commercially about a decade ago. Buy one now and you’ll get 350 km out of a single charge, a bare minimum for many EV models hitting the market today.
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