The 2022 Global EV Race: Win, Place & Show

Michael Dunne

Jan 03, 2023

The Big 5 This Week

1. The Global EV Race: China built and sold more EVs than all other countries combined last year.

China: 6.7M

Europe: 2.5M

USA: 925K

Total: 10.5M (e)

Sources: Argonne National Laboratory, CNEV Post, Schmidt Automotive Research, Bloomberg, ZoZoGo data, company reports. Estimates.

2. Lithium Prices - Up or Down? Ask Goldman, Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan and you hear that prices will fall. Check with people closer to the action - Simon Moores, Joe Lowry, Vulcan Energy - and they will tell you that lithium prices will remain elevated in 2023. Link

3. Tesla’s Record Sales, But. Staying ahead of expectations is hard. Tesla’s global sales rose 40% to 1.3 million in 2022. Alas, Wall Street expected more. Link

4. CES 2023 Is Happening. An expected 100,000 people from 2,800 companies plus 3,100 media people will attend the event this week in Las Vegas. Looking forward to seeing the Ram EV pickup and the Sony/Honda prototype. VinFast will be there, too. I hope to see you there. Link

5. Charging Freeze Out. Imagine pulling up to an Electrify America charging stationing in freezing weather only to discover the the charger is not working. Who will be the first to recommend EA to their friends and family. Hands? Link

One of these is bound to work, right? Photo: CleanTechnica

Which is the correct prediction:

A: “Profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are long way off.” Jim Farley, CEO, Ford Motor Company, Q4 2022.

B: “By 2025, Cruise expects to hit $1 billion in revenues.” Kyle Vogt, CEO, Cruise.

Driving from Brian Head Utah to San Diego (463 miles)

ICE powertrain: 6 hours 15 minutes.

Tesla with Supercharger Network: 8 hours 7 minutes

Other EVs: Can we talk about something else?

Future EVs, Batteries, Charging

VW will start exporting the China-made Cupra EV to Europe in 2024.

Electrics

EV Export Stampede. The Year of the Rabbit, 2023, will see Renault and VW join the parade of global and Chinese automakers exporting made-in-China EVs to global markets. What can stop the stampede? Link

Global EV Penetration Rankings. America places 19th in terms of EV market penetration rates, behind Spain and Portugal. Norway is No. 1 at 86%. A little startling to discover Germany at 26% and Japan not even making the list. Link

Japan’s EV market: Tidy, modern and mostly idle.

Thai EV Market. Thailand accounted for 60% of EV sales in SE Asia in 2022, more than doubling the 2021 deliveries. Indonesia and Singapore came in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. Where is Vietnam, home of VinFast? Link

Batteries

Tesla Ramps Up the 4680. Tesla can now equip 1,000 cars a week with its 4680 battery cells. Surprising that Tesla is not drawing more attention to this important milestone. Oh, hang on, Elon just tweeted something. Link

SK Innovation Moves Into Recycling. SK joins Redwood and Li-Cycle in the business of recycling batteries. This business looks skinny short-term but potentially lucrative by 2030. Patience, please. Link

Charging

Spark Charge in 121 Cities. Mark Cuban is backing this Massachusetts startup that brings the battery charging to your vehicle - at home or on the road. “The same way you would order Uber Eats is the same way you can now have energy brought to your vehicle.” Link

One way to end range anxiety: energy on demand. Photo: Spark Charge.

New Deals / Milestones

Chips Count. You can find about 1,000 chips in the average ICE-powered car. In EVs, the number doubles. No wonder most executives think the chip shortage is with us through 2023. Link

May Mobility Targets No Driver. “Our [autonomous vehicles] imagine thousands of scenarios every millisecond. We are targeting end of 2023 to have the driver out,” says Kathy Winter, COO at May Mobility. (H/T Reilly Brennan FoT Newsletter). That’s millions of scenarios per second, if my math is right. Imagine the required compute power. Link