🔋EVs - Enormous Ventures
🔋EVs - Enormous Ventures
What major car companies are making the move to battery electric vehicles?
In December of 2021, the white house released their Electric Vehicle Charging Action Plan, in which they announced they have,
“united automakers and autoworkers to drive American leadership forward on clean cars.”
This will help them plan their ambitious target to reach 50% of electric vehicle (EV) sales in the U.S. by 2030. This is all fine except for the fact that they have seemingly forgot about the large EV company that is already gained dominant market share in the EV industry and is an American company. This is of course Tesla. It has become interesting to watch as Biden and the US white house refuses to acknowledge Tesla and their groundbreaking contributions to the EV industry. Elon Musk likes to get in on the fun and even responded to the presidents tweet of an interview with the chairmen of the board of GM.
It has been months since the EV plan was announced, and yet the president seems incapable of mentioning the giant American EV company Tesla, which is the reason for Elon’s tweet. This comes at a surprise to many people including Musk for a good reason. Tesla accounted for 79% of registered EVs in 2020, and accounting for 4 of the 5 top EV models (source).
While I was writing this article ironically enough, Biden finally mentioned Tesla in a press conference yesterday.
He certainly knew who Tesla was all along, and from speculation I’ve heard is that it may be due to the white house pushing support of companies with unionized labor to produce EVs which Tesla does not have.
Putting whether Tesla deserves to be or frankly even needs to be mentioned aside, there will be many more EVs produced and driven in the coming years. What are the major car manufacturers plans for developing EVs right now?
Tesla
Tesla is the worldwide leader in EV sales and have four EV models available including the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y. Tesla started and is still a 100% electric vehicle company. They have the dominant market share of EV’s currently and everyone aims to take down the giant. They currently operate a battery manufacturing gigafactory near Reno Nevada and recently applied to open another one in Austin TX. They also work on self-driving feature which learns and gets better the more data from drivers that comes in.
Ford
Ford aims to have 40% of sales to be from EVs by 2030 [1]. They are releasing a electric pickup truck in 2022, transit van, and currently has a Mustang Mach-E. They are planning on opening a battery gigafactory in Tennessee and Kentucky [2]. Ford plans on increasing EV production capacity to 600,000 vehicles by 2023 and converting existing plants to produce EVs to accommodate this plan. They are also an investor in Solid Power who are working to develop solid-state batteries.
General Motors
GM in classic rival fashion wants to one up Ford, as they plan to reach 40% electric by 2025 and further eliminate combustion engine vehicles by 2035 [1]. GM’s website shows their planned Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Hummer EV, and Cadillac LYRIQ. Teaming with LG Energy Solution plan to open the first of four new battery plants in Ohio in 2022. GM has put significant investment in Solid Energy Systems (SES) a lithium-metal battery company.
Toyota
The hybrid electric Toyota Prius has been on the market since 2000 and the company has been pushing hybrids for some time. Toyota has big plans to offer 30 EV models and 70% of its sales from EVs by 2030 [1]. They plan to open their own battery production facility near Greensboro, NC [2]. The first long range EV they plan to release in 2022 is the BZ4X and they have their own plans to develop solid-state batteries. It sounds like these will be first integrated into their hybrid vehicles before committing to a fully solid-state battery powered EV.
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is projecting to sell 50-70% electric vehicles by 2030 depending on the region [1]. In addition to six gigafactories in Europe, they plan to open a domestic battery gigafactory in Chattanooga TN [2]. Volkswagen have a fully electric SUV called the ID-4 available for pre-order as well as an interesting concept based on the classic VW bus. VW is working closely with Quantumscape, a company working on developing solid-state lithium metal batteries without an anode-less design.
Stellantis
Stellantis is a merger between Fiat Chrysler and the French PSA Group which contains Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Jeep, Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, and Maserati. Their percent EV sales projection is 31% US and 70% Europe by 2030 [1]. Currently they only offer a few hybrid options like the Wrangler 4XE seen below so they have a lot to change to meet their targets which include fully electric Ram trucks, Jeeps, and Dodge vehicles. They have plans for two battery gigafactories in North America, but the locations have not been specified [2]. They also are a recent investor in Factorial Energy, a solid-state battery company.
Honda
Honda is expected to have 40% of sales from EVs by 2030 [1]. Instead of producing their own batteries, Honda looks as if they will utilize GM’s Ultium technology and release the Prologue SUV as well as an Acura SUV in 2024. Like GM, Honda has invested in lithium-metal and solid-state battery group at SES.
Hyundai
Hyundai and Kia would like 40% of their car sales to be EVs by 2025 [1]. Hyundai currently has the Ioniq 5, and soon Kia will release the EV6, both SUVs. Also under the Hyundai umbrella, Genesis has a slew of future EVs on display with an aggressive 100% EVs by 2025 target. They have also put investment into the lithium-metal battery company SES in addition to Factorial Energy.
Subaru
Subaru projects 40% of sales to be EV and hybrid by 2030 [1]. Their electric SUV called the Solterra is expected to come out this year.
Mercedes/Daimler
Mercedes has three electric vehicles planned for 2022. They announced that they will be fully electric by the end of the decade. It looks as though they will be influential in multiple battery facilities across Europe and perhaps one in the US. They also have recently invested in Factorial Energy for solid-state batteries in along with Hyundai and Stellantis.
Nissan
Nissan looks to be 40% electric by 2030 [1]. They were one of the first brands with a fully electric vehicle with the Nissan Leaf. Their second EV, the Ariya is available for reservation. They are working on their in house all solid-state battery as well and have plans to introduce it to their vehicles before the end of the decade. In addition to their early EV adoption, they are another car manufacturer planning on opening a battery gigafactory.
BMW
BMW was one of the first car companies with an EV, as they released the i3 back in 2014. They didn’t expand their EV fleet until recently, with three purely electric vehicles in their lineup now. BMW along with Ford is a Solid Power investor hoping to leverage their solid-state battery technology.
Lucid
Another EV only company like Tesla, Lucid is a luxury/performance brand with just one car in their arsenal. They are an United States based startup that recently went public.
Rivian
Rivian is another United States startup that has a truck and SUV in its lineup. Rivian was discussed with a variety of praise, criticism, and confusion as their valuation rose to roughly $150 billion after going public even though they had not turned revenue yet.
This valuation was worth more than any other car company other than Tesla even without cars on the road. The $172 share price from mid November has dropped to $61 as of today. Thing is they were on the verge of production ready and will ramp up deliveries of vehicles throughout 2022. The company also has a deal with Amazon to produce electric vans for deliveries.
Of course I missed some car brands as virtually all car companies have announced plans for electric vehicles. This purpose of this list is to show the largest car manufactures and their plans and progress with EVs and how it relates to battery production. Most of these companies have not started serious production, and since every car brand has plans it looks to be a race to see who makes it ahead first. Another interesting plot is whether any companies can de-throne Tesla for the most EVs on the roads.
As I mentioned in my article last week, materials that go into batteries matter. All of these companies have aggressive EV transition plans which will boost demand for Li-ion batteries. This will put stress on the supply chain and raw material mining operations and will likely cause a price increase for those materials and downstream for batteries as a consequence. A natural response to a demand increase in price is that more of these raw material mines will spring up into operation to take advantage of the higher price, which will increase the supply driving the cost back down. I don’t have a crystal ball to predict how elastic this process will be, but I expect some form of this phenomena to occur. You better believe these car companies want to be on top of it so they can come through with their EV promises. I do imagine this could be a headache for some companies in the coming years.
-Grayson
I’ll leave you with a meme this week…
Photo: Twitter @thomson1824
[1] MarketWatch
[2] electrek
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