If Navigant said the sky was blue, I'd ask for more sources and then doubt my eyes as well as my sanity.

Those false predictions were probably paid by the people currently manufacturing ICEVs and/or supplying the liquid fuels for ICEVs.

The problem for Navigant: prior studies predicted something like what you are all saying here, and the market isn't showing that to be the case. From just last year...

"Combined worldwide sales of hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles will reach 6.6 million annual units by 2020 and become almost 7% of the total light-duty vehicle market, according to Navigant Research’s 2013-2020 Electric Vehicle Market Forecast."

Reality is that ICE vehicle efficiency has been improving more quickly than previously predicted, and oil prices have remained relatively stable. Hence ICE sales are far exceeding prior predictions and the uptake of EVs just isn't catching up despite improvements. Navigant has actually had to temper their enthusiasm. Remember '09-10 when all the major consultants (including Navigant, Pike, and others) and the DoT were confident in 1 Million American plug-ins by 2015? I'll bet if you go back and look at reader comments to these stories you'll see similar boundless optimism.

The markets in which EVs have done very well (Norway) look like victories to us but are infinitesimally small subsets of the global space. Even in the US as a whole, a larger market where EVs have done comparatively well, the rate of growth is slowing.

China is everyone's darling right now, but the real explosion in sales isn't in EVs. Audi, Ford, and GM, are reporting enormous increases in sales of conventional cars into a market 25-30% larger than the US (and growing), while we in our little world are focused on plug-ins. The vaunted Qin sales explosion amounted to 4500 cars through May --- a good fraction of these are still government sales. The total LD plug-in sales across China during this period were less than 11,000 (major headway in orders for all-electric busses notwithstanding), and this with extraordinary tax relief and subsidy that far exceed prior projections.

Break the battery range/cost barriers and Navigant's projections may indeed look silly by 2020 or so. In fact ANY market projection looking past 10 years and using more than one significant digit is fairly asinine.

In 2009 the price of batteries ofr EVs was about $1000/kWhr. Today, 5 years later, they are at about $300/kWhr. That's a 70% reduction in cost. If the same thing happens in the next five years, batteries will be $120/kWhr. The Volt battery will cost $1,940. The Leaf battery $2,880. That is nearly a 90% cost reduction in what was known to be the most expensive component of the vehicles. When will the car companies start pricing the cars correctly?

bk, the barrier has been bent, but by no means broken.

The barrier is also being constantly repaired --- a little less robustly every time, but nonetheless it is not giving way easily.

I'm not going to get into a speculation contest about the current cost of batteries. While I think $300/kWh is too low, it's close enough to correct for discussion. That means Nissan's announcement of a $5500 replacement Leaf battery is still a loser, and is being offered probably as a measure to avoid a $100M+ writedown of leased Leaf asset values.

It also means the current factory Total Manufactured Cost (TMC) of a 1.2-1.5L ICE of around $1000 is the equivalent of about 3kWh of battery. You can build an adequate conventional car very inexpensively, and it keeps getting better (notwithstanding the ongoing addition of non-propulsive regulatory features like more passenger protection, cameras, etc.).

Moreover I don't believe Fiat, GM, and Ford intentionally avoid mass-marketing their EVs in areas of the US that would make economic sense to sell them. Where I live there is virtually no interest in EVs owing to purchase cost and cold-weather impairment. I have one of the four Leafs, and there are two MiEVs, one Smart ED, and 3-4 Teslas in a population of about 225k people. (As for the Teslas: we also have about 3-4 Quattroportes here, proof that sufficient money will always draw in the exotic.) With that bleak picture the local Nissan dealer is nonetheless Leaf-certified, which requires a significant investment in training and test equipment. He's a dreamer like all of us.

Much of America is like this. If you are a CA, Portland, Austin or other similar resident, you might find that shocking, but the internet EV news echo chamber is deceiving. In virtually all of a greener and expensively-fueled Europe the picture is similar. The EV industry hasn't built a good enough case.

The cost of batteries may indeed hit $120/kWh. It may not. But at the same time we will move past 60kW/L output in naturally aspirated engines as a boring norm, and more than twice that in high-performance machines: powerplant and vehicle weights will go down, taking fuel consumption along. The very industrial improvements that we are all rooting for in BEVs will drive deeper, more effective ICEV electrification strategies, and further confound the definition of "hybrid" until nobody even notices or cares that the engine almost never idles any more.

So about the time of the sub-$200/kWh battery people will be buying EPA 60mpg rated family sedans and probably not plugging in (though more and more will). And SJC's hopes for a production base of synfuels will begin to take root, all while we continue to develop more global petroleum resources.

Don't fret: more people will buy BEVs --- the experience is just too compelling. I live with 55-60mi winter range and I still love mine. But they will not be the dominant fleet population for decades.

OK --- then I'm guessing you're saying pure battery electric propulsion will not have to be reasonably cost-competitive to absolutely sweep over a predominantly liquid-fueled counterpart.

Cost has been the dominant driver of overall consumer choice for mechanized personal mobility for about a century amongst all but the upper quartile (or higher, depending on the location) and the adventurous. The broad difference between electric and ICE autos, while important to me, rates a "meh" from many, and surely isn't worth buying an EVSE or experiencing limited range. Therefore to them, like most, cost is a big deal, just like it always has been. History does not necessarily repeat itself, but it generally rhymes fairly well.

Let's say person X, a very green, middle/upper-middle earner in a wealthy country generally does not choose pure electric propulsion even with numerous extant options (financially supported by his government, BTW, and well-regarded by peers). Since all the other elements of choice that would favor EV are present, he must be making this choice for reasons of cost. So how can person X envision a sea-change amongst the general population --- most of them with lesser financial resources and likely far less perceived ethical justification --- with that sea change occurring at unprecedented pace? I'll give you a wild guess who person X might be...

Anyhow, we can't know the outcome of this until at least half a decade passes. It's going to be a very fun ride with many great new choices for the world's customers.

Well, on second reading and review of the Navigant site... I don't know what you all intended, but I know I basically missed the focus of Navigant's work was only MDHV: therefore NOT automobiles. My apologies.

On the one hand, this means that cost is a HUGE factor in the selection of propulsion technologies, far more so than in consumer choice. On the other, the inclusion of busses and municipal vehicles makes other issues --- environmental, local economics, politics --- very much a key criteria. So while I think in general I'll stick to my perspective, I can't say that the significant rush to electrified public transport is not meaningful.

Next time I'll RTFA.

@Herman...LOL
Yeah, I didn't really stop to think about the LDV vs MDHV angle either so I'll join you and RTFA next time!

Herman,

As far as light duty vehicles go: new sales don't seem to have that much to do with price. The minimum cost US vehicle is about $11k, while the average vehicle is more than $30k.

Hybrids, EREVs and EVs are already the low cost choice for Total Cost of Ownership, so if cost were the driver....we would have reached the tipping point.

There are two big problems:

First, the vast majority of people are very slow to move to new things. They have to see people around them using this new thing for quite a while to become comfortable with them. For example, online food ordering has overwhelmingly benefits for parents, but Webvan went bankrupt: they counted on people moving to a new thing too quickly.

Second, the primary reason for EVs is Climate Change, and as a society we haven't prioritized dealing with CC. We just haven't. Until we do, with things like carbon taxes and acceptance by Republicans, it's unrealistic to expect fast movement by consumers.

As for heavy duty vehicles: the problems of economy of scale and long-lived investments are very large. Large fleet customers have been experimenting with pilot programs, but have been afraid of making first movers. That suggests that the early rate of adoption may be deceptive, as we reach a tipping point of cost and acceptance.

Roger,

Internal space is inherently better in an EV. The Volt lost a seat simply because GM chose to use an EV-1 battery rather than lose time developing a new one.

Battery weight is a feature, not a bug. A well designed EV places the weight low, where it greatly improves handling. Regenerative braking greatly reduces the impact of weight on efficiency.

Rail is the best place for freight, though LNG and swappable batteries will work just fine for fleets with fixed routes.

Are fuel cells and H2 storage really cheap enough now for portable applications?

Larzen,

Not stupid, just misinformed.

But, Climate Change isn't the only reason to move away from oil - I should have mentioned other things which add up to an even greater cost: pollution, the cost of military protection of oil supplies, etc.