The shift of weather pattern and global warming has become the talk of today. According to the report of NOAA, there is an approximately 0.18 oC rise in temperature since 1981. Various Government and stakeholder are taking a vital step to managing it. The main factor contributing to Global warming is pollution and according to NASA men made pollution is 1.5 times more than that of nature-driven pollutions, whereas transportation contributes 28% to it.
In the year 1990, the California Air Resource Board started a program named Zero Emission Vehicle (ZVE) in which they passed a regulation for the Automobile Industry to sell electric vehicles in 10 states of the US. Unfortunately, the program came to end in 2003 after litigation from various automobile industries. In 2008 Tesla came up with a Lithium-Ion battery and received the funding of million dollars from US Govt. for the research and development of Electric Vehicles. The joint effect of climate change and the development of Electric Vehicles has jolted the Automobile industry to its core. Electric Vehicles be the foreseeable future of this industry. As said “there are too many slips between the cup and the lips” various factors are impacting the automobile industry due to the development of electric vehicles. Some of them are as follows:
- Huge investment: The automobile industry must invest a handsome amount for the R&D of electric vehicles. Moreover, there will be a huge change in the infrastructure of the manufacturing unit, tools,and the training of the employees. The up-gradation process will require a high investment.
- Change in Supply chain: There will be a complete change in the supply chain of the procurement required for vehicle manufacturing. Developing a new supply chain will be a challenging job for the automobile industry.
- Availability of Lithium-Ion: According to the U.S. Geological Surveythere is approx 367 year of lithium reserve. Even if 365 years of reserve supply sounds soothing, the argument of the electric vehicle and stationary storage revolutions in current demand will skyrocket if these revolutions take place. The scenario of 100 Gigafactories could become a reality. In that case, the 365-year supply will be less than 17 years (13.5 million tonnes of reserves divided by 800,000 = 16.9 years).
Currently, Electric Vehicle hasshowna slow effect on the automotive industry so far, but as the demand forrenewable energy,vehicles rises among the peoples. Thechange could be more drastic than one can anticipate. The governments should investigate it and procure enough infrastructure like charging station etc. to meet the demand. These seismic changes can result in cleaner air and a better climate for future generations.
