Speaker 1: Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshadrati. A couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we put out an episode talking all about electric cars
Speaker 1: and how they went from fringetech to mainstream cars. Though
Speaker 1: are only half the electric vehicle story. There are also
Speaker 1: billions of two and three wheelers that need to be electrified,
Speaker 1: alongside vans, trucks, and buses. In this bonus episode of Zero,
Speaker 1: we're joined again by Colin mccaracker bloomaganif's head of Advanced
Speaker 1: Transport to look beyond electric cars and hear how electrification
Speaker 1: is going for other forms of road transport and whether
Speaker 1: batteries are still the best tech to power them. About
Speaker 1: half the vehicles in the world are passenger cars. There
Speaker 1: are all these other types of vehicles that also need
Speaker 1: to become electric. So let's start with the second largest,
Speaker 1: which is two wheelers. Go to anywhere in Asia. Two
Speaker 1: wheelers are at the mode of transport of choice. Two
Speaker 1: hundred million two wheelers today in the world are electric.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine percent are in China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a really remarkable policy success story,
Speaker 2: if you will, And it's worth bearing in mind, as
Speaker 2: you said that if you're sad in Europe and North America,
Speaker 2: it's difficult to picture just how different the mobility mix
Speaker 2: is in different countries. And so the China success story
Speaker 2: there is another urban policy one largely which said you
Speaker 2: can't drive combustion two wheeled vehicles in the city for
Speaker 2: noise reasons and urban air quality reasons were just straight
Speaker 2: out banning them. And interestingly, lithium ion batteries weren't really
Speaker 2: ready at the time when that happens, so a lot
Speaker 2: of those are originally when that came out, we're lead
Speaker 2: acid batteries, so we're starting to see more and more
Speaker 2: lithium ion coming into that as well.
Speaker 1: This is early mid two thousands, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that's why you have these huge numbers
Speaker 2: in China. But then what you're starting to see without
Speaker 2: such a heavy handed policy is the emergence of electric
Speaker 2: two and three wheelers, primarily the lithium ion base in
Speaker 2: South Asia and Southeast Asia. So markets like India starting
Speaker 2: to go quite quickly, now, Vietnam starting to go quite quickly.
Speaker 2: Now Thailand as well, some activity there. So those are
Speaker 2: markets that we're watching quite closely. And it's funny because
Speaker 2: the global numbers and our outlook look like they don't
Speaker 2: go up that much, they sort of stay flat. That's
Speaker 2: just because the Chinese market is not saturated but very
Speaker 2: close to saturated, and it's really just taking time before
Speaker 2: the other ones start to come up the curve. So
Speaker 2: when you look at those charts in our outlook, it
Speaker 2: looks like, well, you guys are saying it's pretty slow
Speaker 2: in percentage growth outside China, it's actually growing really quickly.
Speaker 2: And then that starts to affect the global market as
Speaker 2: you get later five, six, seven years from now, and
Speaker 2: it starts to all go up quite quickly. But I'm
Speaker 2: very optimistic on two and three wheelers. One of the
Speaker 2: things we try and do is say which segments are
Speaker 2: closest to being on track for the net zero scenario.
Speaker 2: Three wheelers are largely there, so electric took tooks and
Speaker 2: rickshaws were on track pretty much for net zero, which
Speaker 2: is remarkable. There's not many things you can look around
Speaker 2: the world and say this segment is on track for
Speaker 2: net zero. That one is two wheelers is very very
Speaker 2: close as well.
Speaker 1: Well, then everything else is not on track. One of
Speaker 1: those is trucks. What exactly is needed to get trucks
Speaker 1: to become zero emissions will batteries alone, do it? Do
Speaker 1: we still need hydrogen? How are we thinking about where
Speaker 1: trucks are on the transition to net zero?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So trucks are the furthest behind, and they're the
Speaker 2: ones where the most policy intervention and progress is needed.
Speaker 2: And if you think about a lot of the things
Speaker 2: that got the passenger ev market started, things like zero missions,
Speaker 2: vehicle mandates, fuel economy targets, those are just starting to
Speaker 2: be put in place for trucks. You're starting to see
Speaker 2: things like California as Advanced Clean Truck Rule, tighter CO
Speaker 2: two regulations for trucks, and that's starting to get the
Speaker 2: market going. So China, in the heavy and medium commercial
Speaker 2: vehicle market, around three percent of vehicles are zero missions.
Speaker 2: Most of those are battery electric. There's a very small
Speaker 2: number of fuel cell vehicles in there as well. Three
Speaker 2: percent isn't a lot, but it's kind of where the
Speaker 2: passenger vehicle market was in twenty fifteen, sixteen seventeen kind
Speaker 2: of things, so there's some reason for optimism there. Also,
Speaker 2: I think what's interesting about the truck market is that
Speaker 2: total cost of ownership matters much more than upfront cost,
Speaker 2: and there it's a bit of a lesser hurdle to
Speaker 2: overcome in the sense that those fleet buyers they think
Speaker 2: about total cost to ownership. Electricity is significantly cheaper than
Speaker 2: diesel or gasoline as a fuel in terms of per
Speaker 2: klometer driven, so that helps.
Speaker 1: The cost of a vehicle can be split into two
Speaker 1: main buckets, the upfront cost, which is what you pay
Speaker 1: for the vehicle from the showroom, and the running costs,
Speaker 1: which includes keeping it fueled or charged and every day repair.
Speaker 1: For smaller vehicles like cars that use less fuel, the
Speaker 1: upfront costs typically matter more to consumers than running costs.
Speaker 1: That's why, even if it is cheaper to run an
Speaker 1: electric car in the long run, its upfront cost needs
Speaker 1: to be a similar price to fossil fuel equivalance before
Speaker 1: people buy electric cars in big numbers. For bigger vehicles
Speaker 1: like heavy duty trucks, which use a lot of fuel
Speaker 1: and travel a lot further over their lifetimes, the running
Speaker 1: costs matter a lot more. Even if an electric truck
Speaker 1: is more expensive upfront than a diesel one, the total
Speaker 1: cost of buying and operating the electric version over its
Speaker 1: lifetime can be significantly lower. Companies that buy trucks also
Speaker 1: tend to have more money available. That means they can
Speaker 1: afford to absorb higher upfront costs more easily than someone
Speaker 1: buying a car. So the transition to electric trucks is
Speaker 1: likely to be quite different from what we are seeing
Speaker 1: with electric cars, so.
Speaker 2: In terms of which technologies win interestingly, and again if
Speaker 2: we say China is kind of leading on this right now,
Speaker 2: there's not just traditional battery electric vehicles. There's also swappable
Speaker 2: battery electric vehicles emerging in a heavy truck segment, which
Speaker 2: I think is quite interesting. So those are generally vehicles
Speaker 2: that are being used in more of an urban or
Speaker 2: regional duty cycle, not long haul heavy duty trucks. But
Speaker 2: you're seeing a bit more in that going on, and
Speaker 2: then you are seeing some fuel cell vehicles. So our
Speaker 2: view is it primarily based on economics, it will still
Speaker 2: be electric that wins the day overall, even in the
Speaker 2: heavy trucking market, but there are some segments of that,
Speaker 2: the longest haul trucking, heavy weight constrained trucking in the
Speaker 2: long haul segment, in places where the temperatures are extreme
Speaker 2: where hydrogen could play a role, and that's sort of
Speaker 2: in our net zero scenario, you do have a role
Speaker 2: for hydrogen and heavy duty trucking in some of those
Speaker 2: hard to electrify segments. But it probably doesn't get there
Speaker 2: on economics alone. So that's where you'd probably need some
Speaker 2: pretty strong policy support if you're going to see that happen.
Speaker 2: It's very early days on trucking, but I think that
Speaker 2: total cost of ownership and the potential for a big
Speaker 2: shift all of a sudden makes me optimistic that if
Speaker 2: we can get some of these things going in the
Speaker 2: twenty twenties, we might see a more dramatic shift than
Speaker 2: we're projecting right now in the base case scenario anyway,
Speaker 2: in the twenty thirties, and more commitment from the truckmakers
Speaker 2: as well is starting to ramp up.
Speaker 1: Now. Another type of vehicle about the same size but
Speaker 1: very different use case is a bus, and buses seem
Speaker 1: like also a very good thing to electrify because they
Speaker 1: tend to be in places where people live, and so
Speaker 1: you want to cut down an air pollution. Also, total
Speaker 1: cost of ownership matters, and so when you have cheaper
Speaker 1: electricity cheaper fuel, you should be able to convert entire
Speaker 1: fleets of buses to electric.
Speaker 2: Is that happening, Yeah, that's starting to happen now, so,
Speaker 2: and buses I think are kind of the ideal use
Speaker 2: case for electrification, right, A lot of the routes are
Speaker 2: not that long, and there's this urban air quality CO benefit.
Speaker 2: So even if there were no CO two benefits to
Speaker 2: going electric, which to be clear, there are, the life
Speaker 2: cycle emissions of an EV are dramatically lower than a
Speaker 2: combustion vehicle, even when you factor in the electricity and
Speaker 2: making the battery. But even if we weren't talking about
Speaker 2: CO two, we weren't worried about CO two. For urban
Speaker 2: air quality reasons, you should electrify buses. It's a major,
Speaker 2: major health benefit and it just makes urban living a
Speaker 2: lot nicer. So that is happening, and you are seeing
Speaker 2: a growing share of the total bus sales globally are electric. Again,
Speaker 2: China leads that story. A lot of cities there have
Speaker 2: completely converted their bus fleets to electric. A growing number
Speaker 2: are kind of finishing, but you are seeing growing activity
Speaker 2: in North America and in Europe as well. A number
Speaker 2: of European cities committing over the next few years to
Speaker 2: electrified their fleets. The biggest challenge there is getting the
Speaker 2: right amount of power down to an urban center to
Speaker 2: a depot where you park the buses, and that's what
Speaker 2: a lot of them are struggling with. So in London
Speaker 2: they've added quite a few ebuses to the fleet and
Speaker 2: you can see those on the street. The biggest thing
Speaker 2: holding them back from doing more isn't actually the money,
Speaker 2: it's the charging infrastructure and being able to build charging
Speaker 2: infrastructure in the places where the buses go Today.
Speaker 1: Your latest round of forecasts at bloomergen EF brought forward
Speaker 1: several dates for EV adoption, and yet you're still forecasting
Speaker 1: a gap between business as usual and the net zero pathway.
Speaker 1: Are you optimistic that EV adoption will happen at the
Speaker 1: rate we need for net zero targets?
Speaker 2: When people ask me what I think happens, I think
Speaker 2: we land somewhere between our what we call our economic
Speaker 2: transition scenario and the net zero scenario. So what we
Speaker 2: have seen is that policy ratchets up and that's sort
Speaker 2: of pushing us closer to the net zero scenario, which
Speaker 2: is great. So I think we'll land somewhere between the two.
Speaker 2: I'm not confident yet that we are on the net
Speaker 2: zero scenario, but I'm I'm happy to keep revisiting it.
Speaker 2: Every year, and I really hope we see more and
Speaker 2: more of these different segments. Like we said, three wheelers
Speaker 2: already on track, two wheelers nearly there. If I look
Speaker 2: back in five years and we've moved more and more
Speaker 2: of them into the column where they're on track or
Speaker 2: nearly on track, I'll be very happy. Man.
Speaker 1: Now there's a political push happening around net zero, which
Speaker 1: is kind of expected. You'll see it in more countries
Speaker 1: because it is a big change to society, and politicians
Speaker 1: are opportunistic, so they'll use whatever they can to try
Speaker 1: and win votes. One place where it's becoming contentious is
Speaker 1: around banning the sales of fossil fuel cars. From your perspective,
Speaker 1: to reach net zero, our ban's necessary if market forces
Speaker 1: are winning and if electrification is happening at a pace
Speaker 1: that you would like it to.
Speaker 2: This is a bit tricky. If I'm really honest, I
Speaker 2: think the net zero by twenty fifty has been a
Speaker 2: great rally and cry and focal point to get everyone
Speaker 2: on board. I think in practice the last five percent
Speaker 2: of that might be really hard, and cars might be
Speaker 2: the type of thing where look, if you can get
Speaker 2: to know ninety five percent and the market gets you
Speaker 2: most of the way there, and a few people want
Speaker 2: to keep buying combustion cars, but you tax them heavily,
Speaker 2: or the economies of scale effectively tax them heavily because
Speaker 2: there's not many people making them and they're just not
Speaker 2: mass produced in the same way, but those people still
Speaker 2: want to buy them. It may be more of a
Speaker 2: political fight than it's worth to say you absolutely cannot
Speaker 2: buy that, no matter how much you want to pay.
Speaker 2: But I also understand that you do need to provide
Speaker 2: these focal points, these points of action, where you say
Speaker 2: this is the goal, and we're going to push as
Speaker 2: hard as we can towards that. Norway is a good example.
Speaker 2: Norway has this goal of twenty twenty five. Again, this
Speaker 2: is a small country. Maybe it's global relevance you could debate,
Speaker 2: but as this goal of twenty twenty five phasing out
Speaker 2: combustion vehicle sales, it's going to get pretty damn close.
Speaker 2: And that's enough. And I think having the goal and
Speaker 2: having the target in place for a long time has
Speaker 2: been a big part of it getting close. So you
Speaker 2: sort of need those there to kind of push to
Speaker 2: get to ninety ninety five percent. The last five percent
Speaker 2: might be difficult, and from my sort of economist hat
Speaker 2: on it say, well, if someone wants to pay enough
Speaker 2: for the last five percent and we can use that
Speaker 2: to subsidize other things, then maybe I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2: You leave some efficiency on the table if you say
Speaker 2: you absolutely can't at any price. But there are these
Speaker 2: sort of equity and justice things that start to come
Speaker 2: in there. So it's a complicated topic, but I think
Speaker 2: that's where.
Speaker 1: Aligns with me as a journalist. I follow other journalists,
Speaker 1: I follow other writers. And this is a pure, genuine compliment,
Speaker 1: which is the heat rate on your column, which is
Speaker 1: to say, a column that genuinely tells you something interesting
Speaker 1: and you walk away learning something new, is so high.
Speaker 1: I am always amazed.
Speaker 2: Thank you, accha. That's quite a compliment. I also learned
Speaker 2: quite a lot from the different media formats you're publishing
Speaker 2: things in, whether that's podcast or columns or books, so
Speaker 2: I'm flattered to be in that company.
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Speaker 1: Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine Riskell.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is composed by wonderly Special thanks as
Speaker 1: always to Kira bindrum I. Am Akshatrati back next week