The prominent and outspoken Virgin Group founder Richard Branson was recently quoted as saying that he suspected that 15 years from now every car on the road would be electric.
Here’s the exact quote that he made in his conversation with CNN at a Formula E race (while supporting the Virgin Racing team): “Formula E is pushing the boundaries forward into what will be the future. Fifteen years from now, I suspect every car on the road will be electric.”
While one would presume that he was exaggerating a bit for the sake of the argument, with Branson, who knows? He is, after all, known for being a bit optimistic on many counts. Still, electric vehicles are certainly on the ascent — 15 years from now, how prevalent will they actually be?
Elaborating on the comment, Branson stated: “If governments set the ground rules — and they sometimes have to be brave and set positive ground rules — and for instance said, ‘more than 50% of cars must be battery-driven in 10 years and 100% in 15 years,’ we could make that happen. It will be great fun and really challenging to do. The cars would be much more efficient… and battery technology will get better and better.”
CNN‘s coverage wasn’t particularly kind, with the notation made that: “Cumulative sales of electric vehicles (EVs) passed one million last year … but the number of electric cars around the globe is still low, with the International Energy Agency calculating that they accounted for just 0.1% of the total number of passenger cars on the road worldwide in 2015.”
Certainly true…. There’s a long way to go to reach the 100% goal. And 15 years simply isn’t that long for that kind of change. All of that said, though, there are big changes coming to the auto industry. And certainly a lot of opportunities appearing.
Source: Cleantechnica. Reproduced with permission.
