If you’re so inclined, you can follow this link to read some interesting words from Renault’s chief operating officer, Carlos Tavares, on the merits of fully electric vehicles versus plug-in hybrids.
During a media address in the middle of his visit to Renault UK earlier this week, Tavares also made a case for the EV movement that I found very interesting.
Renault, of course, has jumped into EVs with more financial commitment than any other manufacturer. Rather than make one electric model to simply give itself a PR-friendly green halo, it has built four: the Twizy, Zoe, Fluence and Kangoo van.
It’s a major undertaking, especially when EV sales have started off more steadily than many manufacturers initially anticipated.
Of course, it is only to be expected that an important figure like Tavares is going to come up with reasons why he believes Renault has got this right, and not everyone will agree with his sentiments. But here’s what he had to say.
“EV sales will only go in an upward direction. Why? Because the education we are giving future generations will lead them almost mechanically to select their products based on the short list of zero-emission vehicles. Nobody will buy a small car for daily commuting that will not be zero emission. It’s out of the question.
“We will have more and more issues in terms of the quality of the air in the big urban areas. There will be a point in time when public opinion is going to put so much pressure on the governments that something is going to break. Non zero-emissions vehicles are going to be forbidden from entering the city centres. That’s going to make a significant change to customer behaviour.
“Then there is the risk that geopolitical tension could throw the oil price through the roof. I was in the US when the gas price went to $4 per gallon, and I saw the speed at which the American consumer moved from pick-ups to compact cars. Three months earlier, everybody was saying the Americans would never leave their pick-ups. Sure, they came back later, but they changed very quickly into smaller cars.
“At the moment the gross domestic product growth of the world is not very big, but if we start having a new period of growth in not only the US and Europe but also the emerging countries, the imbalance between supply and consumption is going to be so big that prices will skyrocket again.
“All of these bumps are going to take the story always in the same direction. I don’t know how many years this will take to happen, but I want to be ready when it does.”
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He would say that
wouldn't he? Why on earth a lagely nationalised French company should expect the governments of other countries to subsidise their business plan escapes me. What is so inherinently good about the electric car that I have to pay taxes to support it? The electric car should stand or fall on free market merit. And that means it should fall anywhere near the current range of value/money propositions. See also windmills.
CNG Promising Too
Although electric vehicles hold much promise, a wider approach to alternative energy sources in the automotive industry is among us. Compressed Natural Gas, otherwise known as CNG, is expanding in the states because this resource is abundant. Because CNG retrofits are readily available, many fleets are converting to CNG and are realizing significant fuel savings. Hopefully this trend continues in the passenger car market so that all available energy sources are used to power tomorrow's vehicles.
Fuel cells
Of course "it’s probably not worth contemplating what might happen to Renault’s fortunes should the EV market get killed off by fuel cell technology" because fuel cell technology doesn't replace the electric drivetrain - it just replaces the batteries, or at least some of them.
If fuel cell technology does take off, Renault-Nissan have a head start, because a fuel cell car is still an electric vehicle - it's motion still comes from electric motors. If you were to convert a Kangoo to a fuel-cell vehicle, you would start with the electric version, not the diesel.