Top Sustainable Trend - The Electrification of Everything: Spotlight on Electric Vehicles

Posted by: YijunW

GreenBiz's 2018 report: "State of Green Business" identifies important emerging areas and technologies as companies address their environmental and social challenges and opportunities. The trends reflect some of the potentials of sustainable business--- go beyond cost savings and risk reductions by promoting product innovation, discovering new market and transformative business models (Joel Makower).

In the report, one of the big ten sustainable trends is the electrification. Electricity is the most straightforward path to a clean energy economy-- substitute technologies that run on combustion, including the gasoline and natural gas, with alternatives that run on electricity, such as electric vehicles and heat pumps. Imagine everything around you, cars, buildings, campus, and cities will be powered by electricity. With no coal, diesel, natural gas, the world of renewable or low-carbon power is approaching.

Is it a little bit hard to imagine all that at once? Let's start with transportation. Right now, only approximately two million electric cars are on the road in the world and difficulties to popularize EV still remain, such as affordable gasoline price and inconvenient electrical charging stations make consumers hesitate to switch.

Yet, China has made effort to ban fossil-fueled cars and move to the clean alternatives. As the world’s largest car market, China is also the leader in EV production and demand, which drives automakers such as Volkswagen and General Motors to invest heavily in EVs in China. Chinese State Council said China would build beyond 12,000 new charging stations before 2020 to fulfill the demands of over 5 million plug-ins. According to Forbes, China sold 507,000 commercial and passenger electric vehicles and hybrids in 2016, representing a growth of 53% from 2015. Sales of pure EVs rose 65% to 409,000, accounting for 80% of "new energy vehicles". My father just got his new electrical car last month and he is more than happy about it.

The momentum of transitioning to EV it is not only supported by governments but also by corporations. The launch of EV100 in 2017, which is a global initiative that brings corporations to reach a common goal of "making electric transport the new normal by 2030," represents the commitment to accelerating the transition to electric vehicles among big corporations (The Climate Group). EV100 members, including IKEA, Baidu, and HP integrate electric vehicles into directly owned or leased corporate fleets, installing charging infrastructure for staff and customers. With EV100's future EV purchasing, EV manufacturers' revenues are guaranteed and electric cars will be more rapidly affordable. When I said transportation, I didn't only mean cars, but also buses, trucks, trains, and even airplanes. To read more, please visit:
https://www.greenbiz.com/report/state-green-business-report-2018

This is the First Law of Decarbonization: “Everything that can be electrified, will be” (Paul Carp, Elaine Hsieh).

As we are entering into a decarbonization transformation, our technology substantially improves. Price of clean energy is becoming more and more affordable. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), solar energy price will drop by 66 percent and offshore wind prices will decrease by 71 percent by 2040. By the end of 2026, electric vehicles will be as cheap as gasoline vehicles, with sales projected to excel those of traditional engines by 2038. At the meanwhile, projected by BNEF, $7.4 trillion will be invested in new renewable power generation capacity worldwide to 2040 and the global energy storage market will double six times by 2030.

With natural-gas furnaces and water heaters no longer serve as a cheap and competitive source, the decarbonization of residential and commercial buildings is surging. Clean alternatives, electrically heated sources and the concept of all-electric buildings will dominate the market, promising a green energy source to building developers, investors, and the communities. This is a positive feedback loop-- as EV becomes popular, developers are able to invest and improve EV's technology; as technology improves, EV becomes more affordable and thus more popular.

We’re on the way to electrification and decarbonization faster than you could imagine.

To read more, please visit:
https://www.greenbiz.com/report/state-green-business-report-2018
https://www.theclimategroup.org/ev100-members
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2017/09/11/to-promote-electric-cars-china-considers-move-to-ban-gas-guzzlers/#6bf67e6c51b7