The Road Ahead Will Truck Sales Lead the Anticipated EV Surge in 2021-2022? Changes in EV technology will have a more dramatic impact on accelerating the trend toward EV purchases than the government incentives that initially kickstarted the industry. BY BRUCE CAMERON, BLACK PRESS CONTRIBUTOR With California recently announcing that it will move to 100 per cent electric vehicles by 2035, and BC talking about a target date of 2040, the writing is on the wall for new car sales: they will be increasingly electric. The transformation of the automotive industry from combustion engines to EVs is well on its way in North America, and BC is leading the way. The provincial government trumpeted the fact that at the end of 2019, BC led all North American jurisdictions in terms of per capita EV sales. Yet despite the trendsetting pace of EV sales in BC, accounting for nine per cent of all light-duty vehicle sales—ahead even of California at eight per cent—by far the biggest and most lucrative segment of the market is truck sales. In fact, recent Statistics Canada data confirms that truck sales have steadily increased as a percentage of vehicles sold, rising by 3.6 per cent since 2017. Truck sales, including light and heavy trucks, SUVs and minivans, account for an even bigger share of overall revenue for the industry, rising from 76 per cent of new vehicle revenue in 2017 to 81 per cent by 2019. So if the much-anticipated surge of EV sales is to actually materialize, it will have to occur in the lucrative truck segment of the market. The current trajectory of truck sales, combined with the rise in demand for EVs, is creating a perfect storm that will transform the industry much more quickly than many people think. Changes in EV technology will have a more dramatic impact on accelerating the trend toward EV purchases than the government incentives that initially kickstarted the industry. Many of the old objections preventing people from buying EVs, particularly EV trucks, are quickly toppling.
The restricted range of many early EV entrants is a fading concern, as investments in charging infrastructure are being made all over North America, and as private companies begin to provide charging for their own truck fleets. Power and torque are also hurdles once thought insurmountable for an EV truck, but a recent publicity stunt by Ford went a long way towards addressing that objection: the electric Ford F-150 (available mid-2022) towed a massive freight train loaded with 42 traditional F-150s. Not only are established companies like Ford and GM committing huge resources to produce EV trucks, their costs for electric batteries are dropping quickly. Bloomberg noted that battery prices per kilowatt-hour have dropped by 87 per cent in a decade. Continued on next page
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Signals Magazine October–December 2020
