AUTHOR: Anas Eldosouky

In 2006, Sony Pictures released a documentary film under the title of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” The film pointed out the advantages of the electric vehicles (EVs) and the complications and obstacles the EVs faced against many oil industry owners and automobile manufactures who attempted to prevent the EVs to be put on the roads in the USA, because …(you know why)… But the EVs did not die and will never die. In 2011, the same director of the aforementioned film, Chris Paine, directed another film titled, “Revenge of the Electric car.” ”This film documented the struggle of EVs and it ended with the birth of a new generation of EVs including Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf.”

Many of us think that the only advantage of EVs is that they provide environmental benefits. Indeed, EVs can be considered to be environmentally friendly as they release no air pollutants and have less noise pollution than internal combustion engine vehicles. Moreover, EVs have many mechanical, cost and energy saving advantages as they achieve around 90% energy conversion efficiency. They also do not need gearboxes or torque converters, and have 3 times higher tank-to-wheels efficiency in comparison with internal combustion engine vehicles and do not cost a lot to be recharged.

Given the above, many governments around the world have established a financial incentive directed toward customers to motivate them to buy electric vehicles. On Wednesday April 27, 2016, Germany, the fourth largest economy in the world, decided to give a €1billon subsidy to boost electric car sales. The objective is to increase the number of electric cars on German roads from 50,000 presently to 1 million by 2020. The government will take on €4,000 of the car price when buyers choose a purely electric vehicle and €3,000 for a plug-in hybrid one. Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller said “The future belongs to electro-mobility.” He added, “Together we are now laying the groundwork for this future to start more widely in Germany”¹. Japan has followed this plan of subsidizing EVs since 1996, the Japanese government now funds almost 50% of the car price. Japan now has around 40,000 electric car charge points compared to 35,000 petrol stations². Croatia announced that it will give 25 million Kuna (~3.3 million Euro) in 2016 as a subsidy to increase the number of EVs on its road.³ The rallying behind EVs is increasing from year to year and in many economies. Go and check your country, it might be a surprise for you (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_incentives_for_plug-in_electric_vehicles)

The number of EVs on the road is increasing every year. The following table lists the top 10 countries which have the largest plug-in electric cars market share of the total new car sales between 2013 and 2015,⁴ and it is evident that the percentage of the EVs is increasing from year to another.

The table is copied from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country , it includes more references including specific countries)

Aha, almost forgot to say, Norway is planning to ban all petrol powered cars by 2025^{5. So, what do you think about the future of the electro-mobility >>>>> IT IS COMING.}

1-http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/28/germany-subsidy-boost-electric-car-sales

2- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/10/japan-electric-car-charge-points-petrol-stations

3- http://www.total-croatia-news.com/item/12023-why-is-croatia-subsidizing-electric-cars-more-than-germany

4- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

5- http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/norway-to-ban-the-sale-of-all-fossil-fuel-based-cars-by-2025-and-replace-with-electric-vehicles-a7065616.html