The automotive blame game — is it YOUR fault or BMW’s?
We need to electrify our entire transport system. Cars, vans, trucks, trains, boats, you name it — they all need to go electric. But let’s talk about cars.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are slowly gaining ground, but are still just a tiny portion of global auto sales: They accounted for 2.6% of global car sales and 1% of the global car stock in 2019.
The vast majority of cars that are sold today are still fossil-fuelled. And since the average car lasts 14 years, emissions aren’t exactly going to go away overnight. We are shoving a growing pile of fossil-fuelled cars in front of us. This is a problem.
So why is almost no one buying electric vehicles?
“EV adoption” is a term I often hear when people talk about this: “EV adoption is slow” or “EVs haven’t made the mainstream” — essentially saying that consumers are slow to adopt this new technology.
What this implies is that the consumer is in charge. Consumers chose to not buy electric cars. It’s their fault if uptake is slow: they are failing to make the correct decision to buy an EV.
So is it their fault? Technically, yes. Consumers aren’t buying enough EVs.
But is this the result of an active choice — or a lack of choice?
I have a crazy idea: it’s not their fault.
Let’s say you are buying candy and that there are 100 types of candy available. They all cost the same and they look and taste similarly. What is the probability that you chose one of these? It would be 1/100.
This pretty much sums up the situation today’s car buyer is facing: you need to look really hard to find an EV on the market. There are 100s of fossil cars on the market, but only a handful of fully electric options.
The Power of Choice
Let’s say you are in the market for a BMW. They have 57 (!) car models across 13 lineups. 11 of those are hybrids (the heavy kind of hybrids with tiny electric range) and 2 fully electric options. BMW’s global strategy is even called “Power of Choice”:
“Our customers across the globe have different mobility demands. Ultimately, they decide for themselves what they want and desire. That’s the Power of Choice. […] Customers choose the vehicle segment that best suits their living environment — we provide the right drivetrain to go with it” — BMW 2019 Annual Report
This statement, together with their actual model lineup, seems to imply that BMW has made the choice for us, and the choice is combustion engines.
Now you might say that BMW isn’t exactly the poster boy for sustainable transport. So let’s look at VW, a company that seems to take this seriously. Across their huge family of models they only have one serious electric option, the ID.3, a relatively small car. What about the high-volume segments like sedans and SUVs? Nothing. Literally all global automakers follow this pattern
There are many factors that would influence your decision when buying a car, but one of those would surely be the number of available options. And I haven’t even mentioned price, another factor that speaks against EVs.
We shouldn’t blame consumers for making the “wrong” decision when the “right” decision is really hard to make. It’s not their fault that car companies don’t sell EVs.
Let’s consider the idea that these car companies would actually scale up EV production. What could happen?
This would lead to greater availability and choice for the consumer. Increased competition would lead to lower prices. This would drive higher volumes, leading to economies of scale in production that would drive lower production prices, healthier margins and even lower sticker prices. That sounds like a virtuous circle to me.
It’s a compelling idea, but it’s very far from reality. Let’s see if big auto can pull this off and survive competition from Tesla, Rivian, Nio and the rest.
