Sunday, August 28, 2022

Goodbye Fuel Powered Cars, Electric Vehicles are Coming

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I saw on Facebook a propaganda of a China made sports utility vehicle (SUV) Chery (damn, it sounds like Chevy of the U.S hahaha!) where the Filipino-Indian owner bragged about his minuscule financial expenses on the running efficiency of his electric car from Ayala Alabang to Makati City and round trip. He spends P100 for the plug-in power that runs his SUV. Alabang (the biggest village of Muntinlupa City) and Makati vice versa is 39 kilometers via Metro Manila Skyway.

“I used to have a (Toyota) Land Cruiser and Nissan Patrol and spent P10, 000 a week,” he said about his expenses on fuel on his two gas guzzling SUVs on the same routes.

His electric car could run for 100 kilometers through electric power alone.

Nine Components Common to Electric Vehicles. Photo credit: Drivenauto.com


There will be new spike of fuel next Tuesday where gasoline and diesel will have an increase of P1.20 to P1.60 per liter and P5.90 to P6.20 per liter, respectively. With that increases their average prices could be more or less P80 per liter – damn, we used to buy them at P40 per liter before the Russian Despot Vladimir Putin sent his “cavalry” to invade democratic Ukraine.

With the prices of fuel keep swelling since last week, more people will have a moist eye to buy electric vehicle (EV) and shun internal combustion engine (ICE) cars that help poison our environment with their fossil fuel.
According to an article titled EV-Internal Combustion Price Parity Forecast for 2023 – Report published in March 13, 2020 by Mining.Com, the prices of electric vehicles will be competitive with the ICE middle of this decade -2024 to 2026-.

The major factor to the pricing of the EV is the price of its huge traction battery packs – that composed the entire floor of the car – that cost one-third of the present price of the electric car

“As of 2020, the electric vehicle battery is more than a quarter of the total cost of the car. Purchase prices are expected to drop below those of new ICE cars when battery costs fall below US$100 (Php 5,618) per kWh, which is forecast to be in the mid-2020s,” excerpt of the same article.

The cost for raw materials on an average electric vehicle, according to a report by Alix Partners, rose from U.S $3, 381 in March 2020 to $8, 255 or Php 463, 766 in May 2022. The cost increase was attributed mainly to lithium, nickel, and cobalt that are parts of the battery.

Bolivia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chile produce the largest lithium, cobalt, and lithium, respectively, in the world.

Tesla became the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturer in December 2019, according to an article Newest CAM Study shows Tesla as EV Sales Leaders by Chris Randal and published on February 4, 2020 in Electricdrive.com.  Its Model S was the world's top selling plug-in electric car in 2015 and 2016 and its Model 3 has been the world's bestselling plug-in electric car for four consecutive years, from 2018 to 2021.The Tesla Model 3 surpassed the (Mitsubishi) Leaf in early 2020 to become the world's cumulative bestselling electric car, according to an article titled Tesla Passes 1 Million EV Milestone & Model 3 Becomes All Time Best Seller published by Clean Technica in April 12, 2020. Tesla produced its 1 millionth electric car in March 2020, becoming the first auto manufacturer to do so.

Other leading electric vehicles – according to Wikipedia - are Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance with vehicle sales totaling over 1 million light-duty electric vehicles; Nissan with global sales of about 500,000 cars and vans sold by April 2020; Groupe Renault with more than 397,000 EVs sold worldwide; BAIC Motor with 480,000 units sold; SAIC Motor with 314,000 units; Geely with 228,700 all cumulative sales in China as of December 2019; and Volkswagen.

(Send comments totomortz@yahoo.com)

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