O artigo que abaixo citamos, do McKinsey Quartely, sobre as tendências que estão a marcar o passo à generalização do uso do automóvel eléctrico privado —na realidade, um híbrido de combustível fóssil e baterias— ajuda-nos a perceber duas realidades:
- que há um balanço a fazer entre os impactos reais de ambas as tecnologias, medindo os custos em CO2 desde o início da cadeia de produção das baterias até ao seu uso efectivo (from well to wheel);
- que a transição dos veículos 100% petróleo para os híbridos poderá não ser atractiva antes de 2020, e mesmo assim precisará de vultuosos subsídios, isenções fiscais e outros apoios públicos.
Os grandes custos desta transição podem mesmo torná-la parcialmente inviável! Em primeiro lugar, porque será necessário reconverter dramaticamente toda a indústria automóvel actual. Em segundo lugar, porque será necessário, não apenas montar uma nova e gigantesca indústria de produção e carga de baterias, próxima das fontes primárias de geração eléctrica (minas de carvão, barragens, parques eólicas, centrais solares), mas também criar uma imensa rede de pontos de carga nos parques de estacionamento, estações de combustíveis, ruas, etc. Em terceiro lugar, porque será imprescindível descobrir uma solução economicamente viável e limpa para as lixeiras especializadas na reciclagem e armazenamento dos milhões de baterias mortas oriundas desta anunciada mudança de paradigma.
Por todas estas ordens de razões parece aconselhável iniciar a anunciada revolução do transporte sustentável, pelos veículos de transporte público, colectivo e individual (trolley cars, carros eléctricos sobre carris, comboios, táxis, etc.), e pelos veículos de transporte de mercadorias (comboios). — CS.
Electrifying cars: How three industries will evolve — McKinsey Quartely.
Upon entering the mainstream—in a few years or a couple of decades—electrified cars will transform the auto and utilities sectors and create a new battery industry. What will it take to win in a battery-powered age?
JUNE 2009 • Russell Hensley, Stefan Knupfer, and Dickon Pinner
Source: Climate Change Special InitiativeIt’s a safe bet that consumers will eventually swap their gas-powered cars and trucks for rechargeable models. Electrified transport, in some form, would seem to be in our future. But how long will investors have to wait for the bet to pay off? Years? Decades?
Bears would bet on decades. For the next ten or so years, the purchase price of an electrified vehicle will probably exceed the price of an average gas-fueled family car by several thousand dollars. The difference is due largely to the cost of designing vehicles that can drive for extended distances on battery power and to the cost of the battery itself. What’s more, the infrastructure for charging the batteries of a large number of electrified vehicles isn’t in place, nor is the industry tooled to produce them on a mass scale. In any case, consumers aren’t exactly clamoring for battery-powered sedans.
…
The economics of electrified vehicles start with the batteries, whose cost has been declining by 6 to 8 percent annually. Many analysts predict that it will continue to fall over the next ten years as production volumes rise. Battery packs now cost about $700 to $1,500 per kilowatt hour, but that could drop to as little as $420 per kilowatt hour by 2015 under an aggressive cost reduction scenario. Even then, the upfront purchase price of electrified cars would be quite high. We estimate that by 2015, a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle with a battery range of 40 miles (before the need for a recharge) would initially cost $11,800 more than a standard car with a gas-fueled internal-combustion engine. A battery-powered electrified vehicle with a range of 100 miles would initially cost $24,100 more.
Subsidies could help bridge the difference. China announced that it will cover $8,800 of the cost of each electrified vehicle purchased by more than a dozen of its large-city governments and taxi fleets. Business innovation could address costs too. In the solar-technology market, for instance, SunEdison owns, finances, installs, operates, and maintains solar panels for customers willing to adopt the technology. The company then charges these consumers a predictable rate lower than the one they paid for traditional electric power but higher than the actual cost of generation. That allows the company to recoup its capital outlay and make a profit. Innovators are considering similar models to cover the battery’s upfront cost and recoup the subsidy by charging for services. — in McKinsey Quartely .