Electric vehicles

IDTechEx report on their attendance at the AVERE e-Mobility Conference in Amsterdam.

The future of the electric vehicle industry land, water and air largely hangs on the improvement of lithium-ion batteries over the coming decade when no alternatives will be ready for market dominance.

The new IDTechEx report, Future Powertrains 2016-2031 concerns the twenty year future of powertrains for land vehicles, including reference to water and airborne vehicles as appropriate. The primary emphasis is on the most important applications by market value - cars and buses - and the most important powertrain types by value potential but most of this analysis is directly applicable to most other vehicles.

This year sees two sudden changes in electric vehicles predicted by IDTechEx. To expand on what we said last week, the supply of new strong hybrids that do not plug in - like the traditional Prius - has all but ended.

Airbus Group and Siemens have signed a collaboration agreement in the field of hybrid electric propulsion. In doing so, both companies have launched a major joint project towards the electrification of aviation with the goal of demonstrating the technical feasibility of various hybrid/electric propulsion systems by 2020.

To date, attendee registrations are up by 17% and exhibiting organizations are up by 27% on last year.

Sales of hybrid cars in the USA collapsed from 3.2% of car sales in 2013 to under 2% in 2015 as Americans responded to the sharply reduced oil price. However the oil price will recover eventually so commentary that it heralds the death of hybrid vehicles is wide of the mark. Indeed hybrid car sales outside the USA were sharply up.

A tiny, pilotless, 3D printed aircraft has launched from the Royal Navy's ice patrol ship HMS Protector for the first time to assist with navigating through the Antarctic.

At the conference, Electric Vehicles: Everything is Changing as part of the IDTechEx Show!, April 27-28, the future of vehicle charging will be revealed and put in context.

IDTechEx's Chairman Dr Peter Harrop analyses the current state of the market for electric buses.

IDTechEx attended a presentation by Diarmuid O'Connell of Tesla Motors at the AVERE E-Mobility event in Amsterdam 13 April 2016, summarised here.

U-Boat Worx unveils new private submarines especially designed for cruise ships and tourism, including the deepest-diving ever built.

Take a look at the latest positions available at IDTechEx.