Energy & Decarbonization

This article shares some of the research carried out for the new IDTechEx report, Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitors 2013-2023.

Opening speaker at Electric Vehicles Land Sea Air USA 2012 in San Jose California March 27-28, Raghu Das of leading analysts IDTechEx says: "Unlike other events, we delight in slaying the myth that most of the market value is in cars.

Old electric vehicle reports are useless: the subject is moving too fast. IDTechEx is the only analyst with 18 current reports forecasting sales of electric vehicles and their key components and they are kept up to date. Information is fed into these documents continuously as the PhD level IDTechEx analysts tour the world's companies, research institutes and conferences to spot the many changes in technology and business success and interpret them.

We have entered 2012 with an electric vehicle scene that is very different from that which was envisaged not long ago. There are now six key enabling technologies not three and vehicle makers increasingly make some of them, so suppliers increasingly have to compete with their largest potential customers. Precious metals in EV components are being removed remarkably rapidly.

Graphene is considered a hot candidate for applications such as computers, displays, photovoltaics, and flexible electronics.

Fuel cells were originally considered to be replacements for internal combustion engines used in traditional vehicles and replacements for traction batteries used in pure electric vehicles.

Led by the Japanese and with Hyundai of Korea, the Europeans and the Americans coming up fast, we are in the decade of the hybrid vehicle, with much more being spent on them than on pure electric vehicles. This is because traction batteries alone cannot affordably provide sufficient range in most of the large applications by land, sea or air.

This article shares some of the research in the new IDTechEx report, {{Range Extenders for Electric Vehicles | http://www.idtechex.com/research/reports/range-extenders-for-electric-vehicles-2011-2021-000276.asp}}. We are in the age of the hybrid electric vehicle which is strongly outselling the pure electric vehicle in market value though not in numbers over the next decade.

The judges noted very innovative and impressive features with real benefits for electric vehicles.

Over twenty million electric vehicles produced in 2010 will employ on-board energy harvesting to help charge the traction batteries. That includes both hybrid and pure electric vehicles.