Electric Vehicles

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Adoption of electric vehicles is set to accelerate, and that's going to run over a lot of losers, including within the auto industry itself, JPMorgan Cazenove said in a note on Monday. The shift toward electric vehicles is set to be a multi-year process, but once there's a tipping point, likely on a shift in costs, the transition could take off, JPMorgan analysts said. They noted the price difference between traditional internal combustion vehicles (ICVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) was already narrowing as battery prices fall, but prices might not need to fall much for consumers to make the leap.

JPMorgan thinks the electric vehicle revolution will create a lot of losers

Brian Piccioni and team at BCA Research offer a good starting point to our questions on Thursday, in a report entitled Electric Vehicles Part 1: Costs of Ownership. The bad news for EV fans is their work determines that the cost of ownership of an EV still far exceeds that of an internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICEV), even after subsidies are accounted for. With numbers crunched, a comparison between the Chevy Bolt EV and two equivalent ICEVs, the Chevy Sonic and the Open Astra, over 100,000 miles, shows that there’s no denying EVs are still more expensive than ICEVs. Three points come up in particular.

Electric vehicle realities | FT Alphaville

Cars must be driven out of cities to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, not just replaced with electric vehicles, according to the UK government’s top adviser. Prof Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there is no safe limit. Toxic air causes 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK

Electric cars are not the answer to air pollution, says top UK adviser | Environment | The Guardian

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Loup Ventures' cost analysis of the Model 3 found that it was more affordable than the Toyota Camry, the fourth-most-popular vehicle in the US, without factoring in tax breaks. "Consensus thinking is the Model 3 expanded Tesla's addressable market from about 1 million cars a year to 4 million cars a year," he wrote. "However, based on our cost of ownership work, we believe the Model 3 expands Tesla's addressable market to about 11m vehicles per year in North America alone."

GENE MUNSTER: Tesla Model 3 launch is as big as iPhone - Business Insider

In the case of TSLA, though, buying the dip because it’s created an oversold condition might not work. In the table below, we show average 1y forward returns for all periods since TSLA’s IPO. When a period has an RSI of less than the period listed, it is included in the average return calculation. So for all days (0.2% of the total) when TSLA has had an RSI less than 20, it’s generated an average 1y forward return of 91.3%. As shown, the sweet spot for TSLA returns has been when RSI has been neutral, and that’s when most of the trading days have taken place. While the current reading on RSI (31.5) doesn’t necessarily mean there are more big declines to come, there’s also no reason to get fired up about a great entry point based on how the stock has traded in the past. Another shocking aspect of the table below relates to how strong a stock TSLA has been since its IPO seven years ago.  For all eight of the different RSI categories shown, the worst 12-month return is 37.5% (under 30), while every other category has seen an average gain of at least 57%!

Electric Cars On Sale | Bespoke Investment Goup

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All new cars launched by Volvo from 2019 onwards will be partially or completely battery-powered, in what the company called a “historic end” to building models that only have an internal combustion engine.

All Volvo cars to be electric or hybrid from 2019 | Business | The Guardian

Several of the major carmakers, including Renault-Nissan, BMW and VW, have declared ambitious plans for electric cars, supported with grants by governments, which see them as a key way of tackling air pollution and climate change.
The VW emissions scandal gave added impetus for companies to focus on the technology, as politicians and campaigners increasingly blamed diesel for cities’ air quality problems.

All Volvo cars to be electric or hybrid from 2019 | Business | The Guardian

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Goldman Sachs estimates electric vehicles will represent 32 percent of global auto sales by 2040. The firm's analyst projects the battery market will grow to $180 billion in sales by 2040 from just $450 million in 2015. The trend is likely to be a negative one for auto suppliers that make engine parts that electric vehicles don't use. Here are five Goldman Sachs buy-rated stocks the firm recommends to take advantage of the electric vehicle trend. Geely, VW, Honda, LG Chem, Albemarle (ABL)

Goldman: How to play the electric vehicle boom

Volkswagen, the German auto giant, is preparing for a swift expansion in its output of electric cars next year — and the biggest jump in production will be in China. General Motors is making China the hub of its electric car research and development. Renault-Nissan, the French and Japanese carmaker, and Ford Motor have hustled to set up joint electric-car ventures in China.

China’s electric car push lures global auto giants, despite risks

VW has announced that it is investing $84 billion in electric cars and batteries.  The German manufacturer announced the change to its investment strategy tonight at a pre-Frankfurt Motor Show 2017 event.  Earlier this year, VW announced it was investing $10 billion in EVs but has tonight changed its investment strategy.  Of this, $50 billion will be invested in battery production in order to support its ambitions to create a vast range of electric vehicles.

VW announce $84 billion investment in electric cars at Frankfurt Motor Show 2017 | Cars | Life & Style | Express.co.uk

Volkswagen approved a 34 billion euro ($40 bln) spending plan on Friday that accelerates its efforts to become a global leader in electric cars. The world’s largest carmaker by unit sales will spend the money on electric cars, autonomous driving and new mobility services by the end of 2022, it said after a meeting of its supervisory board.

Volkswagen accelerates push into electric cars with $40 billion spending plan

On Thursday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk didn't just announce his plans to remake the trucking industry. He also served notice to rail carriers. Unveiling Tesla's new Semi Truck, Musk crunched the numbers for the agog crowd: A traditional diesel truck can be operated for $1.51 a mile; the Tesla Semi, he said, beats that with $1.26. But it gets better. Using convoys — Tesla Semis yoked together with connected Autopilot technology, operating like road-going trains, with one semi as the leader — Tesla's cost drops to $0.85 a mile. "This beats rail," Musk said. He said Tesla could execute on convoying technology now, so it's really just a matter of a customer buying enough Semis to create the train.

Elon Musk just put the rail industry on notice - Business Insider

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The definition of “good” range varies across the globe, depending on geography and city archetype. But average battery range seems to have exceeded the expectations of the largest customer segments. This, combined with a decrease in prices for electric vehicles, means the market for EVs may be close to a commercial tipping point.

What a teardown of the latest electric vehicles reveals about the future of mass-market EVs | McKinsey & Company

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Last month, the semiconductor and telecom giant Qualcomm “demonstrated dynamic electric vehicle charging (DEVC), which allows vehicles to charge while driving.” It uses technology similar to the wireless charging you can now use for your phone and other gadgets.

Significantly, Qualcomm designed, built, and tested a wireless system that can charge an EV “at highway speeds” — and can simultaneously charge multiple vehicles in both directions. Many other companies are pursuing such wireless systems, since it would make EV charging vastly simpler and more convenient.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are testing roads that are paved with solar panels. The stunning drop in panel prices and improvement in durability means that in the near future, it could be competitive to replace asphalt with solar panels.

Indeed, “road builders in China even want to design solar roads that can wirelessly recharge electric cars running on them,” using technology like Qualcomm’s, the New York Times reported Monday. That would solve the range and charging problem entirely.

The ultimate prize is domination of a market that is rising exponentially. Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Electric Vehicle Outlook 2018 projects that “Electric cars may be cheaper than their petroleum counterparts by 2025,” and that EVs will come to dominate new-car sales.

Why electric cars will soon be superior to gasoline cars in every respect – ThinkProgress

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Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel alternatives in five European countries analysed in new research. The study examined the purchase, fuel and tax costs of Europe’s bestselling car, the VW golf, in its battery electric, hybrid, petrol and diesel versions. Over four years, the pure electric version was the cheapest in all places – UK, Germany, France, Netherlands and Norway – owing to a combination of lower taxes, fuel costs and subsidies on the purchase price.

Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run, says study | Environment | The Guardian

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San Diego-based startup TuSimple said its self-driving trucks will begin hauling mail between USPS facilities in Phoenix and Dallas to see how the nascent technology might improve delivery times and costs. A safety driver will sit behind the wheel to intervene if necessary and an engineer will ride in the passenger seat. If successful, it would mark an achievement for the autonomous driving industry and a possible solution to the driver shortage and regulatory constraints faced by freight haulers across the country. The pilot program involves five round trips, each totaling more than 2,100 miles (3,380 km) or around 45 hours of driving. It is unclear whether self-driving mail delivery will continue after the two-week pilot.

 Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service - Reuters

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Plunging prices for batteries and renewables are driving an electric vehicle (EV) revolution so rapidly that the economics of oil “are now in relentless and irreversible decline.” That’s the startling conclusion of a detailed new analysis for “professional investors” of the economics of EVs versus gasoline cars produced by BNP Paribas, the world’s eighth largest bank by total assets.

The report is good news for humanity because it means peak oil demand may be less than a decade away, which in turn means ambitious climate goals will be more affordable than previously thought. But the bank’s analysis, “Wells, Wires and Wheels,” is devastating for Big Oil. It concludes that “the oil industry has never before in its history faced the kind of threat that renewable electricity in tandem with EVs poses to its business model.”

 One of the world’s largest banks thinks the writing is on the wall for the oil industry – ThinkProgress

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Leave it to McLaren, responsible for some of the wildest supercars on the market, to champion something a little different. The firm's Chief Operating Officer, Jens Ludmann, told Autocar in a Thursday report that synthetic fuel is something McLaren is interested in.

How interested? The company plans to produce a development car that runs on synthetic fuel to showcase the technology's potential. Ludmann says the fuel would require minimal tweaks to today's internal combustion engine, and it'd still be much better for the environment from a CO2 standpoint. Ludmann says synthetic fuel is particularly viable if companies look at CO2 production included in not only an EV's lifecycle, but the EV's battery production. The fact is, building batteries still isn't that great for the environment as we continue to source more materials for the energy storage devices..

 McLaren thinks synthetic fuel could save the engine as we know it - Roadshow