Electric vehicles or Hybrid vehicles: Let us talk future

The automotive industry is one of the most invested companies in the world. This generation has shown how fast young people love to ramp up with new technologies. One could simply predict uncountable prospects for the automotive industry alone. Some of the most promising insights are, as the title says, electric and hybrid cars with autonomous features such as ridesharing and Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communication.

Apart from advancing technologies, reducing the carbon emissions of transport vehicles is turning to be a significant objective as well. Low carbon vehicle technology has received major attention since the past decade. The increased amount of oil consumption by the transport sector has exponentially increased and it is directly linked to the amount of CO2 emission. According to World Energy Outlook 2008, the transport sector of China took a share of 35% of the total oil consumed in that year. This number is estimated to increase to a maximum of 55% in 2030 and it certainly affects the amount of carbon emission made due to transportation. All these rising figures are of considerable importance and the automobile industry should take care to address them before it is too late.

Although petrol, diesel, and oil will be a major part of the transport energy source for at least another decade, it will gradually be replaced by hydrogen or electric energy. One of the prime options to reduce the carbon level is to use alternative fuels for the vehicle. This is where Electric vehicles (EV) and Hybrid vehicle (HV) comes to the scene and no wonder the electric vehicle stocks are increasing over time. Let us now explore these types in detail to understand the differences and figure out the best features of electric vehicles of 2020.

What are they?

Electric cars:

Vehicles that include one or more electric motor instead of the internal combustion engine are termed as electric vehicles (EVs) and it runs only on electricity. EVs do not use any form of petroleum-based fuel and thus contribute zero direct carbon emission which is generated during the fueling process. These emissions include carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, and other smog-forming pollutants.

As the tailpipe emission of EVs is zero, they are a better alternative to conventional vehicles, contributing to climate change and improving air quality in a long run. Furthermore, electric vehicles are cheaper to run and maintain, and also it is better for the environment. Electric vehicles are mainly of two kinds which are battery electric vehicle (BEV) and fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) and it will be discussed in detail in the following sections.

BEV includes batteries within the vehicle and charges itself by plugging into an off-board electric power source and can also partly get charged from regenerative braking. This is a process where the motor helps to slow down the vehicle and uses the energy normally converted to heat into electricity. A BEV generally has a range between 60 to 80 miles per charge which is 130% more than the average daily travel miles per driver in the US in 2017. Some of the best electric vehicles for 2020 would-be Tesla Model 3, Kia Soul, and Porsche Taycan.

FCEV also uses an electric motor similar to BEV but the difference arrives on how the energy is stored in the vehicle. The fuel cell of FCEVs stores hydrogen and then combines the gas with oxygen from the air to generate electricity. This electricity then drives the electric motor of the vehicle. Similar to BEV, FCEV also does not yield any smog-forming pollutants and the only residue is water. Although generating electricity from batteries or fuel cells does not create emissions, it has to be noted that generating hydrogen from natural gases or charging BEV from plugin station produces emissions. However, the stock exchange of FCEV has doubled in 2019 since 2018 and it is optimistic that these numbers will drastically increase in the coming decade. Some of the best choices of FCEVs for 2020 are Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Nexo, Roewe 950 fuel cell, and Riversimple Rasa.

Hybrid cars:

Hybrid cars are a combination of electric vehicles and conventional vehicles and are commonly referred to as hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). It includes an internal combustion engine and as well as an electric motor. Sometimes the gasoline engine does all the work or sometimes it is the electric motor and at times they share the work. The energy is for the electric motor is derived from the batteries or produced by the regenerative braking process. The vehicle is designed to switch between electric and gasoline motor based on design configurations. The hybrid designs of HV broadly depend on the automobile companies depending on different objectives. In the longer run, lesser gasoline is consumed and thus improves the fuel economy. HVs can be further categorized into conventional HV and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV).

Conventional hybrid vehicles are the general HVs that include an electric motor and battery and cannot be plugged-in to charge from an electric vehicle charging station. The batteries are charged only by regenerative braking which would otherwise be wasted in conventional vehicles. This reduces the gasoline consumption of the vehicle to increase the miles per gallon and thus improves the fuel economy.

The only exception of PHEV from the conventional HV is that it allows charging from an external electric vehicle charging station. As PHEV can consume electricity from the grid, it further reduces gasoline consumption, hence enhancing the economy and environment.

Autonomous cars:

Comparison between them

Hybrid and electric vehicles both have certain advantages and disadvantages over each other. Now that we know the basics of electric vehicles, let us draw a comparison to understand which is better from what perspective.

When it comes to battery ranges, hybrid vehicles have lower ranges than electric vehicles to improve efficiency. Some hybrid vehicles are designed in a way that they operate in only electric driving mode when the speed is below a certain limit. This mode is generally effective on city roads where traffic is a regular issue. Furthermore, if you plan to use your car for short commute purposes, then the hybrid will be a better option for you. In case you plan to travel on longer trips, then an electric vehicle comes in handy due to its longer battery range and also saves time as you do not require to stop by at the fuel station.

Comparing with cost-related topics, the main things to be highlighted are the fuel costs and the maintenance costs for electric vehicles. Electric vehicles may not have direct fuel costs, but the electricity used to charge up the batteries from the electric vehicle charging stations are mostly generated by burning fossil fuels. However, you do get the option to choose a renewable source to charge up the battery. For hybrid vehicles, it frequently depends on your driving habits. However, it does reduce the stress on your fuel quantity but how much it reduces the cost depends on how expensive is gas compared to electricity. The cost of driving on electricity is cheaper than gasoline prices on a per/mile basis and thus the electric vehicles get the winning side of being the cheaper option. Furthermore, electric vehicles are cheaper to maintain as the cost due to combustion engines are completely avoided.

One more thing that needs to be discussed for electric cars is that these vehicles usually include incentives and enticement depending on the region of residence. The government usually encourages the users to go electric to improve the economy and the atmosphere and also to cover the higher prices of the electric vehicles compared to conventional choices. Therefore, check the options the rebates that come along with and they will be beneficial in a long run.

Lets finally talk about future

The market trend of the automobile industry over the past decades has provided some significant information that can be used to predict the future of the automobile industry. These trends are, however, are majorly conditioned by country-specific emission standard and economy.

BEVs are the most dominant EV technology in the current market now. Based on the 2019 analysis of Deloitte, the global sales of EV increased by 15% in one year and BEV alone had a rise of 6% there. These growths were observed considerably in Europe and China.

Based on analyzing the growth factors, it can be confidently forecasted that the market of combustion engines will raise to 2025 and after that, it will gradually decline. Whereas the EV sales will take a higher ride with BEV making the major sales share of the automobile industry. The same analysis of Deloitte also predicts that the annual growth rate of EVs will drastically boost by 30% with 2.5 million electric vehicle sales in 2020 to a massive 32 million sales in 2030. This gives enough idea to the OEMs to consider the customer interests in an automobile in the coming future.

That been said, I can strongly conclude that future will have transport vehicles going electric not only due to customer interests but also for economical interests.