Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Several approaches have been considered by
the car industry. Schematically, 4 strategies were
adopted:
Ford evicted electric in the 20th century. Even if
there were several attempts to re-launch electric
car, it always failed. One of the most striking
examples takes place in California in 1990 when
the Zero Emission Vehicle act was passed. It made
mandatory for car manufacturers with over 35000
sold car a year to realize 2% of local selling with
electric cars by 1996. However, with the resistance
of car manufacturers, California had to remove
its ZEV law in 1996.
How to explain that EV and HEV car did not
succeed in entering into mass-market after 1913
whereas the industry experts regularly expected
the development of a huge market? Several reasons
can be raised, on the basis of F. Frery work (2000):
•
The ones that have ignored environmental
issues or did not aim to integrate them into
their strategies, like Chrysler
•
The ones that have tried to find gradual
solutions, like the Hybrid Electric Vehicle,
to cope with increasing environmen-
tal constraint, like Toyota, PSA-Citroën,
Volvo-Ford
•
The ones that wanted to keep several tech-
nological options in hands like the German
car manufacturers, Volkswagen, Daimler,
BMW, or like car companies from emerg-
ing countries, like Chery (China), more
recently
• Consumer behaviors:
if the average per-
formance of EV fits a majority of driv-
ers' requirements, that is to say between
10 to 20 km a day in urban areas, it ap-
pears that some motivations to purchase a
car are different from the current use they
will make. When a consumer buys a car,
he/she will not only consider daily use but
also specific options he/she can use in case
of any events. Ability to drive distance to
leave urban areas during weekends is one
of them. Purchasing act is therefore much
more complex than reflecting the simple
statistics of average uses. The EV does
not provide an equivalent substitute in the
mind of consumers, which contributes to
explain why it led to some illusive expecta-
tions about market growth.
• Costs:
high cost of battery that impacts
considerably the purchase cost of the car
compared with a conventional vehicle.
Whereas the use of EV can be more profit-
able in the long-term, consumer is rather
likely to opt for the least-cost solution
when he/she makes the initial investment
decision.
• Infrastructure requirements:
EV in-
volves the development of a network of
•
The ones that chose a radical shift to the
electric vehicle (EV) like Renault-Nissan,
Tata Electric Nano or to the Fuel Cell
Electric Vehicle like Honda.
Hybrid Electric Vehicle and Electric
Vehicle are Innovations… That
Exist for More Than One Century
Paradoxically, the use of electricity for vehicles
is not a brand new idea (F. Fréry, 2000) whatever
we consider hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) or
electric vehicle (EV):
•
The first hybrid vehicle was developed in
1901 by Ferdinand Porsche.
•
Electric vehicles are even older than the
combustion engine vehicles. The first elec-
tric car wheeled in the US in 1834 and was
sold in 1852. In 1900, 19 electric car man-
ufacturers were operating in the world.
A gas-fueled car was patented in 1886 by Karl
Benz. Since then, it has competed successfully
against electric car. Electric cars targeted upper
