Over $90 billion in investments have now been pledged for the development of electric vehicles and associated battery tech by the world’s top auto manufacturers, going on a new analysis from Reuters.
That tally follows Ford’s recent announcement that it would be doubling its planned investments into the electric vehicle sector — as part of shift towards the technology that follows the dismissal of ex-CEO Mark Fields and a reappraisal.
Considering that as of yet the plug-in electric vehicle sector represents under 1% of the total global auto market, the investments are pretty interesting — as they make it clear that the expectation is now there amongst most major auto manufacturers that EV growth over the next decade or so will be rapid.
Given recent announcements from the government of China, amongst others, this shouldn’t be too surprising.
Reuters provides more: “Investments in electrified vehicles announced to date include at least $19 billion by automakers in the United States, $21 billion in China and $52 billion in Germany.
“But US and German auto executives said in interviews on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show that the bulk of those investments are earmarked for China, where the government has enacted escalating electric-vehicle quotas starting in 2019.
“… Daimler has said it will spend at least $11.7 billion to introduce 10 pure electric and 40 hybrid models, and that it intends to electrify its full range of vehicles, from minicompact commuters to heavy-duty trucks. … The largest single investment is coming from Volkswagen AG, which plans to spend $40 billion by 2030 to build electrified versions of its 300-plus global models.”
Something interesting to note here before ending the article: the CEO of Toyota North America, Jim Lentz, was quoted at the Detroit Auto Show as saying that since it took 18 years for hybrid vehicles to gain a 3% share of the overall market, and they are “less costly” than plug-in vehicles, that it would take much longer for electric vehicles to gain a similar market share. …
“What’s it going to take to get to 4% to 5%” share for plug-in vehicles, Lentz stated. “It’s going to be longer.”
So I guess that we can take that as yet another sign that Toyota isn’t all that serious about plug-in electric vehicles … and will possibly lose substantial market share over the coming decade as a result.
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