The Australian Energy Market Operator has released new forecasts regarding electricity supply and demand over the next decade.
AEMO says that a slower uptake of battery-electric vehicles is set to reduce pressure on the electricity grid. In December, AEMO forecast that seven million electric vehicles would be sold over the next ten years, but it has scaled back this forecast to just four million.
The downward revision is the latest indication that expectations for an increase in electric vehicle use are waning.
Last Monday, Ampol, one of the country’s top petrol retailers, cancelled plans to triple the number of electric vehicle charging stations this year.
According to figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, full-battery electric vehicles accounted for 6.6% of total new Australian vehicle sales in July, a decrease from 7% last year.
Meanwhile, a June 2024 McKinsey Mobility Consumer survey, which polled more than 30,000 respondents across various countries, including Australia, said that close to half of Australian (49%) EV owners said they are “very likely” to switch back to traditional petrol and diesel vehicles:
The current subpar state of public charging infrastructure across the surveyed countries was the biggest concern with EVs (35%), closely followed by concerns over the cost of ownership (34%).
I do not believe that battery-electric vehicles are ready for prime time. They remain far too expensive, lack fast and convenient charging options, lack range, are expensive to insure and repair.
Until car makers can deliver an affordable car that can hot-swap a battery, similar to exchanging a Soda Stream or BBQ gas bottle at a petrol station, I believe they will struggle to gain traction.
Moreover, the large-scale adoption of EVs would require an entire refit of Australia’s electricity transmission infrastructure —from poles to wires, generators—which could cost hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions.
An engineer noted in a comment to the below video that it is not just a case of upgrading local powerlines, transformers, and substations.
Once you get a few fuel stations installing EV fast chargers, you then need to upgrade the high-tension lines and high power transformers that feed those sub-stations. Then the generators themselves.
All those high-capacity power lines are much heavier than the current ones, so we may have to re-build all the transmission towers as well. Then there is the issue of the high-power transformers. There is a global shortage and a waiting list of up to five years to get them, and they come from China.
Proponents of EVs keep talking about them becoming more viable because battery technology is improving. However, battery technology is secondary to the underlying engineering structural problem of EVs.
A 100kWhr battery will take over an hour to charge using a 100kW charger. To charge the same battery in 30 minutes requires a 200kW charger. To charge in 15 minutes requires a 400kW charger. To charge in 7.5 minutes takes an 800kW charger. And to match the refuelling time of a ICE vehicle (less than five minutes) would require a 1.6MW charger.
Scale that up to a national vehicle fleet and the entire EV model collapses into a heap without a complete rebuild of the entire generation and distribution network.
We are not talking millions of dollars, not even billions of dollars. But hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions.
Finally, the environmental benefits of EVs are wildly exaggerated, as explained in great detail by John Cadogan in the video below.
