The research firm Lux Research has launched a new tool — dubbed the “EV Inflection Tracker” — with the intent of helping predict when exactly the electric vehicle market will comprise over 50% of new car sales, according to a new press release.
The new tracker tool is of course a reference to the concept of an “EV Inflection Point” — which would be the point when electric vehicles (EVs) take over the overall auto-market.
Lux Research’s EV Inflection Tracker will be focusing on EVs possessing a greater than 200-miles-per-charge all-electric range, with price points below $35,000 — as vehicles fitting this description have the potential to move quite a lot of units.
Here’s more on that from Lux Research:
We’re watching all the plug-in offerings but, most notably, for depth of competition in EVs with greater than 200 miles of driving range at a price point of $35,000 or less, around which time a significant acceleration of adoption can be expected. Given the lack of any vehicles, let alone a wide variety, that meets these criteria we’re far from the EV Inflection Point. In fact, in the 2016 edition of the Tracker, we estimate that the EV Inflection Point is in the 2035-2040 time-frame. This corresponds to three full model cycles worth of development and iteration: By then, for example, the Nissan Leaf will be in its fourth generation.
This 2016 snapshot can be further broken down by vehicle type, to look beyond the EV vehicle fleet as a proportion of the total fleet, and into how many truly viable EVs there are in each segment. Looking at five classes – small cars, large cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, and luxury vehicles – in terms of viable commercialized vehicles available as well as their track record, only luxury vehicles get a passing grade. However, these will fail to drive meaningful enough sales volumes for plug-ins as a whole. They do, however, represent the early incubators of technology that is too expensive for the mass market, making these OEMs important to watch for trickle-down innovations. At the opposite end of the spectrum, pickup manufacturers have done nothing to move the needle in terms of electrification, while in the middle there is some progress from the manufacturers of small and large cars. Overall, the automotive industry earns an overall failing grade of 27/100.
While EV growth has been (seemingly) moving at a rather slow pace in recent years, the upcoming launch of Chevy Bolt and the Tesla Model 3 will very likely change that.
It’s hard to say. 2035 could be a good bet, but you never know if something revolutionary will happen in battery tech in 5 to 10 years. That could change everything and accelerate the 50% mark to 2030 or maybe even 2025. I would say 2040 is too conservative though. I really hope it’s conservative anyway.
Cool idea, but the inflection point is not necessarily the 50% point. An inflection point is the point of maximum RATE, meaning the point where the rate stops increasing and starts decreasing. For a perfectly symmetrical S-curve, it will be at the 50% saturation point, but in general not so. For instance, if the EV saturation rate continues to increase even after reaching 50%, the inflection point will occur at a higher percent.