In the past 18 months a number of players within electromobility have made statements and decisions based on different views of the transformation to sustainable transport systems. We may try to interpret the reasoning behind the statements and the conclusions drawn by the different players. They indicate a wide spectrum of views of the future.

A tension is building between the different views and this tension will at some point have to be released and the different players will inevitably align their views around the most probable development. This is for the simple reason that the world will only experience one sequence of events, not the multitude of diverse developments that is indicated by the present lack of coherence among the players.

The question is when the views will become aligned and what event or development will trigger the revision of some of the more unrealistic forecasts.

I have analysed and written about the large-scale transformation to electromobility since 2005 and up until 2020 few other experts seemed to notice the substantial challenges embedded in the large-scale change of transport systems to electric vehicles.

Some statements and decisions over the past 18 months:

During the autumn of 2020 the UK Government decided to ban the sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, as part of its 10-point plan to make the country sustainable. The 10-point plan was accompanied by a budget of 12 billion pounds to support the development.

The ambition to stop selling petrol and diesel cars from 2030 indicates a very optimistic perspective on the transformation. Presumably, the decision would have been preceded by an analysis that indicated that this would be possible, but this is not certain.

In December of 2020 the chairman of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, went public saying that he was not certain whether it would be possible to transform the world’s transport systems to e-mobility. Toyota had analysed the cost of transforming Japanese road transportation to e-mobility and concluded that large investment in infrastructure would be needed. Mr Toyoda argued that between 135 and 358 billion US dollars would have to be invested in power infrastructure to facilitate the transformation.

In 2020 Volvo Cars decided to only produce fully electric cars from 2030. Ford decided to stop selling petrol and diesel cars in Europe from 2030. These companies did not seem to foresee any obstacles to these decisive moves. Volkswagen took a more pragmatic approach, deciding to wait and see, and adjust their strategy as events unfold.

In February of 2021 Bill Gates’ book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” was published. In it the author argues that countries will have to double or triple their power production to change to sustainable production and distribution processes. He did not specify the expansion that would be needed to facilitate the transformation to electromobility. Increased power production will be needed for a number of purposes for countries to change industrial production and transportation to sustainability.

At the conference CodeCon 2021, Elon Musk was interviewed and responded to a question from the audience, that countries will have to double power production to facilitate the transformation to e-mobility. He argued that large investment will be needed in all parts of power production and grids, from generation by large power plants to local production via solar panels, to investment in all parts of transmission and distribution grids.

Two aspects of electromobility will require large amounts of electricity — the production of batteries and the charging of electric cars on a daily basis.

In 2022 the EU Commission decided to ban the sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. This decision has not been accompanied by plans for the expansion of power infrastructure of an extent indicated by the calculation by Toyota and Elon Musk. Instead, the EU seems to be confident that the transformation will not need to be planned or managed by governments.

In the past week the Chief Manufacturing Officer of Stellantis, the French-Italian-American company that produces Fiat, Peugeot, Opel, Chrysler, and a number of other vehicle brands. He warned that the car market may collapse around 2035, when the sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned by the EU.

According to Stellantis, there is a risk that the cost of the components of electric cars does not decline rapidly enough to make electric cars competitive, which would make many car buyers unable to buy new cars. If this would happen, the demand for cars may plummet and the car industry could collapse.

The widely disparate conclusions of the future could be summarized in the following way:

- Some organizations, such as the EU, Volvo Cars, and Ford, seem to see few obstacles to the transformation. Companies may stop producing petrol and diesel cars from 2030 or stop selling them in Europe from this year and the EU and individual countries could without any significant risk decide to ban the sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 or 2035.

- Other organizations and major players in the automotive industry warn that countries need to make large investment in power infrastructure to facilitate the change and others, like Stellantis warn that the price of electric cars may remain high well beyond 2035 and that demand for cars may plummet as an effect of this, which may cause the car market to collapse.

The statements by Toyota and Elon Musk are in themselves cause for concern. Investment in power production and distribution of the magnitude indicated could hardly be achieved over only two decades. Most governments have not started to plan for this type of expansion and development of the magnitude indicated in all parts of power infrastructure would require massive investment and expansion programmes.

Can these two points of view be reconciled? Can the transformation be achieved without large-scale government investment and change management efforts to transform transport systems to electromobility?

Since the publication of my first book on the subject of large-scale transformation of transport systems to renewable fuels in 2009 (“Global Energy Transformation”), I have argued that there will be a need for large-scale change programmes. The transformation will be very complex, and it is not likely that it can be driven primarily by the market forces.

Since then, governments have implemented generous subsidies for electric cars, invested large amounts of money in the expansion of charging infrastructure, and invested large amounts in battery production. Some governments have started to investigate the need to expand power production, but they have not investigated the overall need to expand generation, power grids, and train individuals to take on the different tasks that will be needed throughout the transformation.

- To drive all Germany’s cars on electricity, 100 TWh will be needed on an annual basis. At present 600 TWh of electricity is produced in Germany. In addition to this amount needed to fuel cars, transportation will need another 50 TWh. In the coldest weeks of the coldest winter over a 10-year period the need for capacity is likely to double. In addition to this, large amounts of electricity will be needed for battery production. In total power production may need to double.

- In the UK a total of 100 TWh will be needed to fuel cars, buses, and trucks. The total amount of electricity that is produced at present is 325 TWh per year. Winters in the UK are not as cold as those in Germany and the capacity needed to cover the coldest weeks over a 10-year period may be 50% higher than the amount needed in a summer week.

- As vehicle fleets become electric, cars, buses, and trucks will have to be charged on a regular basis, wherever they happen to be. This means that many vehicles will have to be charged in places where the power supply today is limited. The need to expand charging infrastructure and grid capacity will be substantial in combination with the need to expand power production.

- Three industries will have to change from the ground up. The automotive industry and its suppliers will change from producing petrol and diesel vehicles and components for those to making electric vehicles and components instead. The transport industries will change in a similar way to the use of electric vehicles, and the fuel industry will change from supplying fossil fuels to supplying large amounts of electricity.

- Very large numbers of employees will be affected by the change and a large need to train and re-train students and employees for their roles in the transformation and in the emerging industries will arise.

- A large need for business development will arise as well.

Some worry that the transformation will be problematic and other high-level decision makers seem to think that it will go entirely without glitches.

These two points of views need to be reconciled. There will only be one sequence of events and the change will either go without problems or significant change management efforts will be needed.

By mapping the entire range of activities that will need to be undertaken, governments and companies can develop bases for decisions that can be shared and discussed. At present no such mapping or dialogue seems to have been initiated. Instead, different parties have their own analyses and data.

No change of this size has been attempted in the past. Never before have governments decided to change three global industries from the ground up and it seems like a curious approach to try to do this without planning the transformation process in some detail, if only to discover that there is no need to worry. With a detailed plan of the process governments, industrial players, and utilities could compare their different maps of the transformation and arrive at a shared understanding of the process and its possible pitfalls.

I have since 2005 analysed how countries need to approach the transformation in order to change transport systems on a large scale and I am looking forward to the next step in this development:

- Will governments start to map the change processes to identify all activities that need to be undertaken to drive the transformation to completion?

- Will companies come up with more arguments regarding the investment needs or the risk that the production cost of vehicles may not go down rapidly enough for the average vehicle buyer to be able to afford electric vehicles from 2035?

- Or will some other aspect emerge that forces governments and companies to compare notes and start to discuss the details of the transformation? Will this lead to large expansion programmes for power production and distribution or will the development take some other turn?

The past 18 months have been very interesting, and the most probable development is that different players will make more frequent statements and that the discrepancies between the different views will become increasingly obvious.

Throughout this process the need for experts who understand the challenges will increase. A successful transformation is likely to require an increasing amount of analysis and planning on the part of many different types of organizations and companies.

Mats is the author of seven internationally published books on innovation and business development, focusing on the large-scale change to electromobility, the circular economy, and the development and implementation of other new technologies. His latest book is “The Blind Guardians of Ignorance — Covid -19, Sustainability, and Our Vulnerable Future” and the first one of these was “Global Energy Transformation.”

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Swedish business and sustainability consultant, writing about opportunities and challenges in the transformation to a sustainable future.