Energy & Decarbonization

Silicon Valley in California spawns the awesome giants that hold the future in their hands but they cannot solve their traffic problem.

Toyota and Daimler presented at a recent IDTechEx conference on their fuel cell vehicle programs. A questioner asked them to reveal the unique selling proposition of fuel cell vehicles. They said there is no USP.

The saying is, "In a gold rush, get there first, sell shovels". The "shovels" of the EV business are covered in the unique new IDTechEx report, Industrial and Commercial Electric Vehicles on Land 2016-2026.

Trucks have to clean up their act if they are not to become illegal under the impending 2025 and 2030 legislation and those that jump the gun will probably gain market share because that clean up typically comes with fuel saving key to profitability in fleet operations working on wafer thin margins. Everyone agrees about that - but how to do it? Complete disagreement.

The conference "Electric Vehicles: Everything is Changing" in Berlin 27-28 April was a great success. Here we give only a glimpse at the rich insight and information presented. IDTechEx deliberately pitched the event as different from other electric vehicle conferences in looking firmly at the future including the speculative and ill-defined.

This article shares some of the research for the new IDTechEx Research report, Electric Vehicle Traction Motors, Belt Driven & Integrated Starter Generators 2016-2026. It is no longer contentious to say that the future of land, water and air vehicles is to be more and more electric.

Something is stirring in the field of fuel cell vehicles.

The electric bus market is growing at a CAGR of 20% in terms of unit sales. The rapid growth is a game changer for the battery market as electric buses require large-sized batteries ranging from 74 kWh (fast charging e-bus) to over 300 kWh (slow charging e-bus). This is why IDTechEx Research forecasts that the e-bus battery market will overtake the consumer electronics sector by 2020.

Installing photovoltaics in roads seems a daft idea at first. It sounds expensive and unlikely to work unless cleaned, free of snow and ice and in direct sunlight - all too infrequent in most places. Indeed, roads are constantly dug up by utilities, repairmen and others. How do you do that with sheets of glass?

Summary of the key information tracked during the Electric Vehicle conference held in Santa Clara USA.