The future of electric cars revealed

Today’s electric cars are only a glimpse into the future.

While there is no doubt that battery-powered vehicles will increase in prevalence and popularity over the next decade – almost ensuring that your next new car will feature some form of electric propulsion and the one after that will most likely be fully electric – exactly what that looks like will be wildly different from the limited number of EVs currently available in Australian showrooms.

Car-makers and their suppliers from all corners of the globe are investing heavily in the development of electric cars with cutting-edge new batteries and technologies that will make them more convenient, drive longer distances and cheaper to own.

So, what does the electric vehicle landscape look like in another decade?

Here’s a snapshot of what to expect and why tomorrow’s EVs will make today’s combustion-engine machines seem like dinosaurs.

One of the reasons why electric cars are currently so expensive in comparison to equivalent combustion-engined vehicles is the cost of the battery.

Most EVs have a large lithium-ion battery cell – the same technology as those batteries used in most rechargeable electronic devices – that provides power to the electric motor (or motors).

At present, there is only a limited number of suppliers capable of producing these units for the automotive industry, and the volume isn’t yet large enough to offset the production and development costs.

But financial analysts predict that, as demand for EVs increases – particularly in Europe over the next decade as a result of stringent government regulations – the production cost for batteries will reduce exponentially, dropping below the benchmark figure of $100/kWh by 2023 that will make the cost to build electric cars on par with conventional vehicles.

With that in mind, expect the next-generation of EVs to be more affordable than today.

At the same time, advances in energy storage will ensure tomorrow’s EVs offer a longer driving range than current models.

Universities around the world, including renowned colleges such as Stanford and MIT in the US, are allocating huge scientific resources to improving the chemical properties of batteries to increase their energy density and efficiency.

Put simply, you’ll be able to cram more electricity into the same space in order to increase the driving range.

One of those solutions is the application of solid-state batteries in electric cars.

These are batteries that replace the toxic and flammable electrolytic chemicals between the cathode and anode in a lithium-ion battery with a solid ceramic electrolyte that allows them to have up to three-times greater energy density and be twice as fast to recharge.

While ultimately safer, smaller, more convenient to charge and holding more power, solid-state batteries also have a number of a drawbacks.

Firstly, they are currently extremely expensive to produce, are more sensitive to extreme temperatures and the ceramic electrolytes require high pressure to remain in contact with the electrodes which makes them susceptible to damage from mechanical stress.

In spite of these hurdles, Toyota has spent decades on the development of solid-state batteries with its partner Panasonic and plans to introduce a range of solid-state EVs in the next decade.

Similarly, Volkswagen has invested almost $500 million in QuantumScape, a US-based start-up supported by Bill Gates, to advance the production feasibility of solid-state batteries for automotive applications.

Batteries are one of the heaviest components of an electric car and, as a consequence, dampen the vehicle’s potential handling and performance.

Smaller solid-state batteries have the potential to counter that in some ways, but researchers at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, are developing a ‘massless’ battery concept that incorporates carbon-fibre in the negative electrode.

The main benefit of this is a significant reduction in weight as the carbon-fibre hosts the lithium without the need for heavy metals such as copper or silver as a conductor, plus its inherent strength contributes to greater rigidity in the battery pack and it can be constructed in a variety of shapes to incorporate into the vehicle’s overall body structure.

No matter what type of battery is in tomorrow’s EVs, it will still need to be replenished – just like a fuel tank. The problem with batteries, though, is they take longer to refill.

But companies as diverse as Porsche, Hyundai and Kia are already making massive inroads in shortening the time it takes to recharge an electric car with high-power 800V charging capabilities.

In the recently-released Porsche Taycan, its battery can be recharged from five to 80 per cent in less than 25 minutes with a 270kW charger, while Hyundai’s upcoming IONIQ 5 will charge from 10-80 per cent in 18 minutes on a 350kW charger.

What if you didn’t have to plug in to recharge at all? That’s a question that is being solved by many car-makers, and even some countries, through the adoption of wireless charging.

Just as your mobile phone can be topped up through inductive charging, EVs of the future could have the same function.

BMW, for example, has developed a wireless charging mat for your garage, where you simply park the vehicle on top of it and the electrons flow through to the battery.

Further to that, Sweden has trialled a section of road with wireless charging capabilities, allowing road users to receive a battery boost while driving.

Another idea to speed up the time it takes to refill a battery is by replacing the depleted unit with a fully charged one.

Battery swapping sounds like a simple idea and is already used throughout China with Beijing’s state-owned taxi service operating 206 swapping stations in 19 cities around the country and ambitious start-up brand NIO offering owners free lifetime battery swapping.

America’s Ample has also built battery-swapping stations in San Francisco and Oakland where it is working with a fleet of Uber drivers in modified Nissan LEAF EVs with a modular battery pack.

The fully robotic stations claim to be able to replace the battery in less than 10 minutes and offer improved battery life as the replacements can be charged at a slower rate and during off-peak periods.

Charging your car from home sounds normal, but what if it was the other way around?

Many car-makers are looking to implement vehicle-to-grid (V2G) infrastructure that essentially reverses the flow of energy from your vehicle into the electricity grid, allowing the static charge in the battery to provide power to your home or office.

Many EVs such as the Nissan LEAF already have V2G capability, but the current infrastructure in Australia prevents it from being used.

With proper planning and using solar energy, V2G could help provide a fully sustainable household; using the sun to power the house and charge the car during the day, while the stored energy in the vehicle provides power at night.

And that’s just scratching the surface of what electric cars could look like over the next decade, because there are certainly many more wild conceptual ideas being developed in top-secret labs and workshops across the car industry.