The Electric Vehicle industry is shaping up to become a $350 billion a year market by 2023, according to a December 2013 report by Dr. Peter Harrop, Raghu Das and IDTechEx. The industry will produce some 4 million vehicles annually by 2020. To put this in perspective, the global market for gas powered cars and commercial vehicles in 2012 was 84 million units produced with China 19 million, US 10 million, Japan 10 million, and Germany 6 million leading the way.
Land, water and air EVs include car-hybrid, car-pure electric, heavy industrial, bus, micro EV quadricycle, golf cart/caddy, disabled mobility, military, marine and others are in the midst of a “disruptive” period of rapid change.
Technological advances are driving the industry simultaneously, although technical hurdles remain for some key technologies. Components are changing due to the availability of supercapacitors that are beginning to replace batteries or significantly extend their lifetimes. There are also many new types of batteries, new techniques for energy harvesting and new power electronics.
The report mentions some of the spectacular new EVs being developed:
- Marian Fast Surface Boat
- Atmospheric Satellites: fixed-Wing Planes that will stay aloft for 5 years
- Privateer Industry’s amphibious hybrid plane
- Engineers are working to develop “extremely short take-off and landing” (ESTL) personal planes, including air taxis and flying cars. The following video shows the Terrafugia hybrid car/plane under development by MIT scientists with a combined 123 years experience in aeronautical engineering. The group has $30 million in pre-orders and has built two production-ready prototypes. As of December 2013, the group had raised $11.5 million on wefunder.com.
Related articles on IndustryTap:
- The 3D-Printed “Urbee 2″ Electric Vehicle Makes a Beeline For The Urban Landscape
- Taming Hurricanes By Feeding To World’s Electric Grid
- Collaborative, Inter-Institutional R&D Transforming US Electric Grid
References and related content:
- Take a Look Inside the Tesla Electric Car Factory
- Electric Vehicle Forecasts, Trends and Opportunities 2015-2025
- Range Extenders for Electric Vehicles Land, Water & Air 2015-2025 – M…
