Will everybody want an electric car (EV) sooner rather than later?

This is arguably one of the most fascinating subjects of the modern era and having walked around a car dealership on the weekend I have to say some of the EV’s are looking very nice with the important variables around battery technology such as range are improving exponentially – there are plenty of cars now in the 400-500km range while the Tesla Model S Long Range comes in well over 700km. Charging times are another important variable which is also improving rapidly, depending on the charger at the owners disposal it can take anything from 1min to 1.5 hours to add around 30km range to a vehicle, but a rapidly increasing network of charging stations I feel will see access more readily available than the old “Servo” before we know it – I can see the likes more and more supermarkets installing stations to attract customers, we already have a couple at our local centre.

• Over 5 years ago I saw first-hand in California Tesla charging stations occupying the front & centre parking spots at the likes of libraries and museums.

Readers shouldn’t underestimate how far behind Australia is in the worlds EV revolution, what’s almost funky and new locally is the new norm  in many countries, the percentage of new vehicles sold that were EV in 2020 makes us look positively 3^rd world!

• Percentage of new cars being plug-in electric in 2020:  Norway 75%, Sweden 32%, UK 11%, China 6%, US 2% and Australia 0.7% – these figures are truly embarrassing but they clearly show the future and we and our government will catch up eventually.

Another factor supporting the EV evolution which some subscribers may not be aware of is that like for like EV’s are on track to cost less than traditional cars by 2026 as battery costs plunge i.e. over the last 5-years we’ve already seen the battery component of an EV fall from 50% of the vehicle to closer to 30% and the trend is likely to be ongoing as billions are piled into this new industry. A quick reflection on this surface information and it’s extremely hard not to believe that most cars being sold in the near future will be electric.

Elon Musk has become a household name in just a few years, he’s also now the world’s richest person since Tesla’s shares exploded in recent months. The stock fell over 3% last night after Mr Musk asked his Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his stock, a not too subtle $US15bn tax bill is probably a slight motivator. However the main point of looking at TSLA is to illustrate the gains which can be made by successful players in the EV’s space – MM like many has underestimated how strong TSLA could be in 2021.