First posted on the Cleantech Investor website, December 2010. Copyright Cleantech Investor Ltd 2010
by Arthur Girling
Insider perspectives on this emerging industry at Cleantech Investor’s EV event, hosted by Hunton & Williams in the ‘Gherkin’.
The electric car has been around since the 1830s, but it looks as though its time has finally come. That was the gist of presentations at a breakfast for investors in the electric vehicle industry last Friday, 26 November.
The four presentations, summarised below, underlined the diversity of the industry, showcasing a wide range of technologies, infrastructure ideas and business models.
David Martell, CEO, Chargemaster
Chargemaster supplies plug-in charge points for electric vehicles. The company recently closed a fundraising round and is planning for expansion – CEO David Martell forecasts £3.5–4 million turnover in 2011, increasing to £8.6 million in 2012.
Chargemaster both designs and manufactures upright charging posts which can accommodate two sockets, which, if required, can be adapted to accommodate future format changes or standardisation. The posts communicate with a central database by GPRS signal. The company has been able to turn orders around quickly - Martell said that Chargemaster had agreed a deal with Milton Keynes council just ten days before the event, and will install 151 charge points there within a matter of weeks!
Chargemaster’s customers include various UK local authorities (the Milton Keynes project is funded by the Government’s Plugged In Places pilot scheme) and supermarkets, including Waitrose and Asda, and the company has a partnership with Scottish and Southern Electricity. Internationally Chargemaster has customers in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Martell sees great potential for growth in the industry – by 2015, he claims, 80% of the world's car manufacturers will have an electric vehicle on the market. He expects to see 2 million electric cars on British roads by 2020.
Regarding different approaches to charging infrastructure, Martell predicts plug-in technology will be more lucrative than induction pads in the short term. For his company, installation of public charge points is where most business is to be found initially, before public EV ownership becomes more widespread. In response to a question about battery exchange systems, Martell commented that the range of systems and sizes may make this particular charging technology difficult to implement.
Chargemaster hopes to capture one third of the UK charging market in the next three years, and plans to launch a flotation on the Stock Market next summer.
David Latimer, CEO, EVO Electric
EVO Electric, based in Woking, Surrey, is a spinout from Imperial College. Its projects have included the construction of an electric taxi which is 56% more efficient than a regular internal combustion engine model. EVO builds drivetrains based on axial flux technology, the use of which Latimer describes as a significant step-change in efficiency comparable to the change from drum brakes to disc brakes.He sees great opportunities for range-extended EVs.
Latimer predicts big growth for the industry between 2014 and 2015, as the current crop of vehicle launches gain market penetration. (As he points out, vehicles typically take approximately four years to progress from concept to showroom.) He believes China will see particular rapid growth in the electric vehicle industry due to high government stimulation.
One of the cars EVO has worked on is a range-extended electric Lotus Evora 414e, which actually has higher performance than the petrol equivalent, accelerating from 0-100 km/h in less than 4 seconds.
Bill Gillespie, CEO, Modec
Modec, which was founded by Lord Jamie Borwick, builds pure electric delivery vans with a removable lithium battery cassette. The vans have a range of 160km, and a top speed of 80 km/h.
According to Gillespie, delivery trucks are well suited to the constraints of electric vehicle technology. Trucks often make up to 100 stops a day, sometimes driving no more than 20 or 30 miles over an eight-hour shift in urban areas. Delivery companies, he believes, will create their own charging infrastructure for back-to-base fleets of trucks.
Modec has sold vehicles to customers including Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Fed-Ex and UPS. Gillespie commented that the UK Government has been very supportive of electric cars, but not so supportive of vans. Modec has, however, sold a lot of vehicles overseas, particularly in the US where the incentives are large. Modec has a joint venture with Navstar in the US, which has benefited from funding under President Obama’s ‘Green New Deal’ stimulus package.
Like David Latimer of EVO Electric, Gillespie also sees impressive opportunities for growth in Asia. As he pointed out, nearly all lithium batteries are built in China, Korea and Japan, and there are already more than 100 million electric scooters in China.
Barry Shrier, CEO, Liberty Electric Cars
Shrier describes himself as an “agnostic” regarding the technology upstream of the EV's drivetrain – whether it is hydrogen or a battery, he sees the important technological shift as being the electric motor which drives the vehicle. However, he believes that hydrogen as a combustion fuel is a “dead end”.
Liberty Electric Cars has focused on retrofitting the drivetrains of vehicles, including an electric Range Rover that can accelerate from 0-60mph in less than 7 seconds.
The company has won a contract with the Chinese Government to fit 'e-kits', or electric drivetrains, to 10,000 buses, which will be fitted with induction charging technology. Liberty has also been awarded a £103 million grant in the US as part of Obama's stimulus package.
Shrier said that Liberty will be launching a £25 million investment round in January 2011, and he hopes to be ready for a trade sale or flotation in five or six years.
There was a great deal of enthusiasm for the EV market which, according to Barry Shrier, may turn out to be the “second era of the car industry”. Watch this space for more detailed updates on investment opportunities in the electric vehicle industry, and look out for the Electric Vehicle Investor magazine, launching in early 2011.
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