The new Bloomberg New Energy Finance study concludes electric two- and three-wheelers are already saving a million of barrels of oil a day.
On the world’s roads last year, there were more than 20 million electric vehicles and around 1.3 million commercial electric vehicles, incuding buses, delivery vans and trucks.
But these numbers of four or more wheel vehicles are wholly eclipsed by two- and three-wheelers. There were over 280 million electric mopeds, scooters, motorcycles, and three-wheelers on the road last year. Their sheer popularity is already cutting demand for oil by a million barrels of oil a day—about 1 percent of the world’s total oil demand, according to estimates by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Electric vehicles are undoubtedly a positive way to reduce our carbon footprint, especially when they are charged from renewable power sources.
From an environmental viewpoint they are better than ICE cars, but they are still cars with the same demands on road space that causes congestion and they still use a lot of energy especially when only one person is transported.
Batteries make them heavier than regular cars (leading some in the UK to gfear some existing multi-storey car parks may not be able to accommodate a full compliment of parked EVs) and take a lot of raw materials to produce and battery production is still a source of pollution.
The uptake of electric two wheelers has been the real revolution so far in personal transport, especially in developing nations where the small-capacity motorcycle is a part of regular life.
In Australia a new report written off the back of Bloomerg’s NEF study, estimated that someone travelling 7,500 miles a year (12,000kms) in an electric car would be save 70 per cent of the fuel cost compared with petrol/diesel equivalent. Of course this needs to be offset against initial purchase price. But an electric two wheeler is just 4% of the cost of charging the EV… and a staggering 1% of the fuel cost in a regualar car.
The report of ARSTechnica is based on Australian fuel and electric costs but makes convincing reading for the two (or three) wheeler. Below are extracts from the report. For comparison AUS$1 is equivalent to US$0.65, and a litre of unleaded fuel in Australia costs AUS2.07 a litre (€1.24 or US$1.35 – which equates to US5.10 per US gallon). Also the OECD calculates that electricity prices in Australia are currently around 11% lower than in Japan, 14% below EU prices, but 34% higher than U.S. and 117% higher than Canadian prices
“Petrol cars cost about AUS$0.14 per kilometer in fuel, or about AUS$1,820 in fuel annually for the average car doing 12,000 km. Maintenance averages at $910 a year, bringing the total to $2,730 for a petrol car,” says the ARSTechnica report.
“By contrast, charging an EV would cost around $480 for that distance. Maintenance of $240 takes annual running costs to $720. So EVs are much cheaper to run. But they are expensive to buy.”
The report then turns to other forms of EV: “The electric transport revolution is a great chance to rethink how we move through our cities—and whether we even need a car at all.
“Cars, after all, often have only one occupant. You’re expending a lot of energy to transport yourself. By contrast, electric mopeds and bikes use a lot less energy to transport one or two people. They’re also a lot cheaper to buy and run than electric cars. If you commute on an e-bike 20 km a day, five days a week, your charging cost would be about $20—annually.”
So, as manufacturers chase building a vehicle that is like a regular car in every way apart from its propulsion – with the associated similar or higher production cost – the real worldwide personal transport solution may actually end up with millions of two-wheelers.
Read the Bloomberg NEF report HERE
Read the full Australian arsTECHNICA report HERE
Return to Decarbonisation News Index HERE
