A Different Electric Dream

Electric cars are not new. The first cars made more than 100 years ago were batterypowered. Electric propulsion declined as the availability of fuel for internal combustion engines grew.

Ever since then, electric cars have been trying to make a comeback, but with little success. General Motors’ daliance with the electric car in the 1990s ended as suddenly as it started. Conspiracy theories abound, but the main reasons for GM’s EV1 failing was probably high purchase cost and restricted range.

Today, these are still the very reasons impeding 01 / JAN the growth of electric vehicles (EVs). Except for countries where government incentives are high, such as Norway, Iceland, Holland and Sweden, the penetration of EVs remains negligible.

Worldwide, total sales of EVs crossed the 1.5 million mark in May this year, accounting for a mere 0.15% of total vehicle population.

This slow take-up explains why the line-up of electric cars remains small, which in a perverse way contributes to the slow take-up of these cars. So, besides cost and range, choice of products is another reason why electric cars are not taking off . There are other secondary reasons as well, such as low confidence in a relatively untested technology, and fear of losing familiar driving sensations. 

But if you were to pick the top reason for EV sales staying in the slow lane, it would be cost. And currently, the only way to mitigate this is with government subsidies.

In this respect, the reluctance of some governments is understandable. Singapore, for instance, already has a scheme which grants tax rebates of up to $30,000 for low-CO2 cars, including electric models. However, most EVs are still costlier than petrol equivalents even after a $30,000 rebate.

To give a more generous tax break would not be socially equitable, especially in a country where less than half of households can afford to own cars. It would be seen as using taxes to subsidise the well-off.

So, is electrification doomed again? Not necessarily, even if it does not take the form of a four-wheeler.

E-bicycles (e-bikes), e-scooters, hoverboards and other forms of electric mobility devices are taking the world by storm. They are relatively cheap (in Singapore, the price of a new e-scooter is as low as $300), they cost next to nothing to operate, and they can cruise effortlessly at 20km/h, which is not much lower than the average speed of a car during peak hours.

They are flying off the shelves not only in Singapore, but in every major city in the world. According to Pike Research, a non-profit outfit, the global market for e-bikes alone will hit 51 million units by 2018, up from 30 million in 2012.

Just imagine, 51 million units. That is 34 times the total number of EVs on the road. In Singapore, there are already around 12,000 e-bikes in use, outnumbering the 140 or so pure electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles by a whopping 86 times.

And those are just e-bikes. There are no readily available figures for other mobility devices. But conservatively, we can safely assume there are twice as many e-scooters, hoverboards and other electrified devices around, since they generally cost much less than e-bikes and are more portable.

So, we are looking at over 24,000 of these in Singapore and 100 million worldwide by 2018 – bringing the total electrified two-wheeler fleet (excluding electric motorcycles) to 150 million in two years’ time.

And if they continue to grow at the same pace, they will exceed 500 million units by 2030 – or half the world’s current car population. If the same growth rate applies to Singapore, there will be 150,000 of these electric twowheelers by 2030 – equivalent to the entire motorcycle population here today.

Because these devices are treated with a very light regulatory framework, they could well proliferate at a faster rate once they attain critical mass, and when their prices plunge. Commuters will start using them for entire origin-to-destination journeys, instead of the first and last miles. After all, most journeys here are about 10km long, which can be completed in half an hour (door to door) with an e-bike or one of the many personal mobility devices. In Singapore, when COE supply is tightened further, the popularity of these forms of transport will soar.

Car owners who are priced out of the market may well resort to these. They do not require a licence or insurance to operate (unlike motorcycles), and their running cost is lower than public transport.

In fact, in a city, these devices make a lot of sense. For one, urban planners need not build more roads or parking lots.

Indeed, the city of the future may not be populated by flying cars or driverless vehicles. Rather, it might well be swarming with e-bikes and other mobility devices, zipping here and there and crisscrossing one other’s path like ants on a picnic mat.

If so, we need not worry too much about when electrified mobility will arrive. Because it may already have.