First published in Cleantech Infocus: Electric Vehicles, December 2009

Cleantech Infocus: Electric Vehicles contains commentary on 150 companies in the electric vehicle industry. We include the electric vehicle operations of the major OEM automotive manufacturers as well as newcomers to the industry. Also included are a number of companies which are positioning themselves in the electric vehicle infrastructure space. A host of component manufacturers are covered, but this publication excludes battery companies, which are dealt with in a separate publication, Cleantech Infocus: Batteries (see www.cleantechinfocus.com).

Independent companies in our list of 150 range from up-market luxury car manufacturers such as Tesla, to producers of small, low cost electric vehicles for city use, such as Think. We also include coverage of a number of innovative electric and hybrid bus and van manufacturers.

It is clear from the profiles of the companies in this report that the electric vehicle industry is a global industry. As might be expected, countries with a long history of car manufacturing – Germany, Italy, France, Japan, the US and the UK – are prominent. However, it is also obvious that more recent entrants into the automotive manufacturing space – countries including South Korea, India, China, Malaysia and Brazil – are seizing the opportunities opening up on the back of the EV phenomenon.

Just over 4% of the companies covered in this report are Chinese, and we have focused on the higher profile companies in China such as BYD (which has attracted investment from around the world). The numerous Chinese manufacturers of electric bikes are beyond the scope of this report. However, we may see these companies enter the automotive space in the future and we hope to revisit this sector in a future publication.

Overall, Asian companies account for just over 10% of the total covered. It is worth noting that the exclusion of battery manufacturers in this report means that the Asian representation is not indicative of the size of the broader EV industry: proportionately there are significantly fewer Asian companies in this report than we covered in Cleantech Infocus: Batteries.

A full 25% of the companies in Cleantech Infocus: Electric Vehicles are from the US. The strength of the North American electric vehicle industry is further underlined by the inclusion of an additional 5% of Canadian companies. From South America, we include four Brazilian companies.

Based on the number of companies, Europe appears as by far the biggest region, accounting for over 50% of the total. Just under 20% of the companies featured are from the UK, where the motor sports heritage is an important factor driving investment in electric and hybrid technologies. Almost 9% of companies included in the report are German and just under 7% are Italian.

In the future, the biggest markets for electric vehicles look set to include the two largest economies in the world, the US and China. Both the Chinese and US Governments are putting policies in place to encourage investment in the manufacture of electric vehicles and batteries. On his recent visit to China, President Obama announced the US-China Electric Vehicles Initiative in conjunction with President Hu – an initiative designed to “coordinate the countries’ strong shared interest in the deployment of electric vehicles”.

Clearly the opportunity to play a part in the electric vehicle industry is being seized by companies around the world.