Second part of a special report on all the key aspects concerning electric cars.
We reproduce here the second part of the excellent synthesis on electric mobility produced by the outreach and awareness platform WattED, a synthesis originally designed as a dossier divided into seven distinct questions.
After reviewing the climatic, environmental, financial questions and technological alternatives, we now tackle the issues of competition, grid stability and adaptation, and finally sobriety.
Climate change being what it is, the need to stop burning oil indiscriminately has made its way into national politics. Thus a number of states have made commitments on an end date for sales of new combustion-engine vehicles (as early as 2025 in Norway, 2030 in Germany, 2035 in Canada, Japan or California, 2040 in France, Spain or... Cape Verde). And at the EU level, a commitment was then made to align all member states on a 2035 date, in order to give coherence and visibility to manufacturers on their primary market.
One can hear that pivoting to electromobility is like shooting itself in the foot for Europe, which holds cutting-edge expertise in combustion vehicles, as evidenced by the export profits amassed by German brands that are champions across the board.
On the side of the United States, historical rival of Europe in the automotive industry, manufacturers there are relatively split in two. On one side, a historic industry (Ford, GM, Jeep, etc.) that no longer matched European industry in terms of quality and that is barely pivoting to electromobility. On the other side, Tesla, the newcomer that wants to overturn the table by taking the largest share of the global electromobility market (the Model Y is the best-selling vehicle in the world, all powertrains combined!).
But for Tesla (which, among other reasons, is feeling the impact of Elon Musk's turn) as for others, the peril comes from the East. While it is true that the Chinese were historically far behind Western manufacturers, China has given itself the means to pursue its ambitions.
Because of documented evidence of government support for made-in-China vehicles, Europe has responded with differentiated customs barriers by brand, reaching up to 38% (far from the 100% import duties recently imposed by the USA and Canada, which in effect close their markets to imports).
These barriers give the European industry a bit of time to adapt but they will not last long in the face of the firepower and ingenuity of the Chinese industry. As with PV and many other sectors, it is capable of delivering high-quality products at far lower prices and does not intend to confine itself to the entry-level market. It is up to the legacy manufacturers to prove that they can, despite greater inertia, withstand the shock with their powerful financial resources devoted to their innovation capacity.
We must not confuse the past and the future. If Europe historically benefited extensively from its expertise in thermal mobility, that is by no means guaranteed. While this market will remain partially relevant (emerging countries, luxury vehicles...), the Chinese will also be a dangerous rival there. But the main danger comes from stranded assets, know-how and industrial tools sized for a technology that seems to be outdated. By the way, sales of European vehicles are already collapsing in China, once a market considered a priority where German brands represented a sign of success.
If the future is electric in the majority of the world (which seems to be the scientific consensus because the tool is simply cleaner, more efficient and progressively cheaper), then fighting it is a rear-guard battle. Just as being the world leader in kerosene lamps did not prevent the transition to the light bulb (and today the LED), burying one's head in the sand serves no purpose.
The shock can be violent in the industry concerned; a few million jobs are threatened in the case of insufficient adaptation. But the battle is not yet lost and the opportunities must also be seen: in addition to limiting the climate impact and air pollution, there is the chance to become more resilient. Europe has no oil but it does have opportunities to produce its electricity and improve its trade balance.
Switzerland imports roughly 6 billion worth of petroleum products every year, a figure that rises to 100 billion at the European level. Moreover, competition drives down the prices of electric vehicles, enabling faster integration of renewable energies, for example through Peak/Off-peak tariffs or new technologies like V2X.
Have you ever heard this sentence: "we are asked to save electricity and then pushed towards the electric car?" And if so, have you noticed the misunderstanding behind it? What we are asked is to save energy in whatever form it is used (heat, electricity, fuel), not specifically electricity. As seen previously, an EV consumes FAR less energy than an ICE vehicle.
While Switzerland imports all of its fuels on a continuous flow, it is fortunate to produce on its soil as much electricity as it consumes. Of course, in addition to our hydro power, we need to import capture means (Chinese solar panels) or fuel (Kazakh, Canadian or Australian uranium, enriched by Europeans or Americans) but the situation is very different.
Once a solar panel (or a wind turbine) is installed, you have about 25 years of production. Uranium is so energy-dense that it can be stored for years without any problem and one can switch to another supplier (or enricher) in the meantime. Switzerland is fortunate to have non-fossil electricity, making it much more resilient, and has the potential to produce much more of it.
In 2023, Switzerland consumed 63 TWh of transport energy (mainly petrol and diesel for road transport, electricity for trains) and the objective is to reach only 37 TWh by 2050, thanks notably to a strong electrification of the transports that can be electrified (cars, buses, coaches, two-wheelers, street maintenance equipment, light commercial vehicles, some trucks).
As can be seen, solar PV is the energy most likely to develop and this will create an increasingly important overload problem on sunny days and seasons. This is where the symbiosis with smart charging of electric vehicles (often parked all day doing nothing) and dynamic tariffs (off-peak hours) will be extremely useful to relieve grids by absorbing this clean and abundant energy.
Although Switzerland is generally an electricity exporter over the year, there is a real seasonality issue since we are importers during the winter season.
Hence this concern: Could we be prohibited from charging in winter?
During the gas crisis of winter 2022-23, a signal was sent by the Federal Council that it could ask EV owners not to recharge their vehicles during the period of stress in the event of reaching the third level of emergency (among other measures such as banning streaming or video games). So yes, in an electrical crisis situation, the right to charge could be limited to essential uses (as is also the case with petrol in an oil crisis).
In practice, an electricity shortage would be so catastrophic that measures would be taken immediately in the short term (hydraulic reserves, emergency fossil plants) while waiting for longer-term projects to guarantee winter supply (massive wind, alpine solar, gas, new nuclear...).
The good news is that even with electricity 100% from gas, the EV would remain cleaner than the ICE vehicle! In Switzerland, one can imagine that in the worst case (building a few gas plants to make up part of the winter shortfall), gas would represent 15% of the annual electricity mix.
So yes, if the entire vehicle fleet were electrified and everyone wanted to charge at the same time at full power during a peak demand period, e.g. at 7pm in winter, there could be congestion problems. But this will not happen because a number of measures are in place:
The EV has one more asset regarding the grid: "bidirectional charging" or V2X (V2G/V2H - Vehicle-to-Grid/Home). This is the ability to feed the grid with a small portion of the energy stored in your vehicle while it is plugged in at home. When buying solar panels, more and more people consider adding a battery to favor self-consumption but one might as well use one's driving battery (already mined, paid for and of larger capacity) which can also do this job.
In Switzerland, a test was successfully conducted with 50 Mobility vehicles, allowing them to support the grid when they were not in use. If we took the hypothesis of 1 million vehicles (Switzerland currently has 6 million) plugged in at home and available in the evening to give 20% of their capacity, that would be the equivalent of a giant battery able to run the whole country for 2 hours.
The electrification of transport will obviously require investments in the grid (power for fast charging, especially for trucks, demand management, V2G...) but this is not considered particularly problematic. Other grid upgrades are also essential and at least as complex (modernization of old pylons, adaptation to climate risks, adaptation to decentralized solar, connection of wind farms with new lines to be built...).
However, it is often forgotten that the electrification of vehicles will also bring many benefits to the grid, notably by facilitating the integration of the huge quantities of solar photovoltaic that would otherwise be difficult to absorb.
As has been observed many times, even though it is clearly preferable to the internal combustion vehicle (ICE), the electric vehicle (EV) is not perfect. This imperfection explains the existence of many arguments seen online or heard on the street against EVs.
Among them is the idea that the solution lies in modal shift to soft mobility (public transport, cycling, walking...) and sobriety (shared vehicles such as Mobility, fewer kilometers traveled).
On the IPCC side, a whole list of behavioral levers is listed to limit climate change through population actions. Across all categories, the two biggest levers at the global scale are avoiding car use altogether for those who can and switching to electric cars for the others. Modal shift to public transport or active mobility (bike - walking) are also cited but with a lower potential.
At the International Energy Agency, the EV is also highlighted as part of the "key technologies" of electrification, alongside solar and wind. In its NetZero scenario, the IEA includes sobriety measures (modal shift, limit to 100 km/h, reduction in car weight...) to achieve its goals but this does not prevent the motorized fleet expected in 2050 from still being around 2 billion.
One can see in the graph above that the gains hoped for from sobriety (in green) are generally much smaller than those expected from new consumption tools (mainly EVs and heat pumps); it is their combination that is emphasized and not their opposition.
While we can reasonably assume strong disparities globally for reasons of infrastructure, population density or trip lengths, we can reasonably imagine that it could be different in Switzerland. We live in a densely populated country with a public transport network that makes the rest of the world envious. To what extent can we hope here that "sobriety" will avoid the need to replace the fleet of private cars?
Let's start with the Confederation's official scenarios which include 4 variants, one of which is "Sustainable Society" and is the one we will focus on, being the most optimistic in terms of habits and modal shift.
This variant is the only one in which the main indicator (persons*kilometers) decreases for car travel. But as can be seen, the decrease is very limited; the potential for habit change and modal shift is judged relatively modest compared to kilometers traveled by road. These changes barely manage to compensate for the expected 20% increase in population over these 30 years (due to migration flows, notably for the technical professions indispensable for construction or the transition).
The Confederation not being necessarily an apostle of the "true sobriety" hoped for by the most fervent environmental advocates, can we find another model that, although unpopular at first, goes much further in terms of societal transformation?
In that case, we can turn to the association négaWatt Suisse, always extremely ambitious in its assumptions for societal transformation. But in the end, we are not so far from the Confederation's "sustainable" scenario: we do see a more pronounced modal shift and a strong decrease in kilometers traveled per person but this is then almost completely offset by the increase in the number of Swiss residents.
Ultimately, even for the most ambitious association in terms of consumption reduction, we find that kilometers covered by private cars would still represent 60% of individual mobility in 2050...
One can perfectly imagine and hope for another society in which the private car will have a much less important place than it does today, allowing space (roads, parking, shopping areas...) to be returned to other modes of mobility or to renaturation. Many voices call to change the narrative to move toward different imaginaries likely more desirable for health, landscape and many other co-benefits.
That said, large-scale mutations in urban planning, infrastructure and habit changes take decades. No realistic scenario today can do without a large number of private vehicles in the next 30 years, even in Switzerland where the public transport network is fantastic.
As this represents at least two generations of vehicles, it is absolutely essential to recall what emerges from all the scientific reports in the world: the electric vehicle is an indispensable tool of the transition, infinitely preferable to continuing to burn oil in a tool as outdated and polluting as a combustion vehicle.
That it is the target of massive disinformation is unsurprising given the danger it poses to the oil ecosystem (with annual turnover of 1,000 billion) and the massive change it can trigger across many stakeholders (manufacturers, subcontractors, garages, mechanics enthusiasts...).
And while it is entirely legitimate to push for lighter vehicles in smaller numbers, fighting the electric vehicle (or simply putting it on equal footing with its thermal equivalent) while waiting for a possible perfect solution, however, seems unjustifiable on scientific grounds.
OFEN (2023) : Verständnis Ladeinfrastruktur 2050 - Wie lädt die Schweiz in Zukunft ?
OFEN (2020) : Report and interactive charts - Energy Perspectives 2050+
RTE (2020) : Development of the electric vehicle and system in France
Carbone 4 (2022) : FAQ on the electric car - q.16: "will the French grid hold?"
OFEN (2024) : V2X Switzerland Mobility
Federal Office for Spatial Development (2018) : Transport Perspectives 2050 in Switzerland
NegaWatt Suisse (2020) : Scenario for a sober transition by 2050
International Energy Agency (2024) : World Energy Outlook 2024
IPCC (2023) : AR6 - WG3 synthesis report
This article has been automatically translated using AI. If you notice any errors, please don't hesitate to contact us.
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