Environmentalists Simmer As There Are Few Takers For EV Batteries In UK

Across Europe, battery making business has suffered hugely and crunch continues to be unchanged unless carmakers are legally bound to sell electric vehicles and this is what troubles environment devotees too.

Transport a& Environment also hankers for tougher rules for CO2 and to offer battery vehicles in a large number by 2025 as a result. It observes that lesser facilities to be needed if we plan and project this target.

As per its estimates, across EU and UK, around 462 Gigawatt hours of battery facilities would be needed to be set-up, by 2025 but looks for a limited demand of only 174 GWH worth by that year. Such a scenario would further slacken the transformation process and investors would be compelled to withdraw their capital from green projects and this would further slow down the process of green jobs creation across the region.

As a matter of factly, Asia witnesses fast infra development for battery centres than Europe, Europe still considers building 38 factories with an estimated cost of around 40 billion pounds which also includes Volkswagen facilities six in number and some regular country plants, such as British Volt thriving in the UK.

In 2020, electric vehicle sales recorded an increased as public awakened to new emissions rules which were tough and this year, increase is likely to continue as critical changes are due in CO2 regulation in 2030.

But, as a mark of good omen, there has been a rise in electric car sales which is on rising annual graph and falling prices of batteries has spurred it further, with a wide variety of models compelling consumers to adopt this green technology.

The new engine emission rules, which are known as Euro 7, are slated to be unrolled in 2025 and are expected to push the sales further as conventional engines would become costlier than these.

However, discussions are still on, as for the terms of the regulations and as always, Transport And Environment calls for draconian CO2 to push battery model sales just in a couple of years.

Julia Poliscanova, senior T & E director opines, “The battery industry is successfully responding to Europe’s electric-vehicle ambitions, yet EU policymakers are failing to provide regulatory certainty and guarantee the adequate market for electric vehicles. The EU and UK must raise CO2 standards throughout the decade to avoid wasting billions of investments and derailing the battery boom.”

A handful of markets, including UK, will see complete end to sales of petrol models by 2030 and Ford and Volvo have pledged to sell only electric cars following 2030 in the whole continent.

At T&E, we truly expect that demand of 462 GWh of batteries for electric cars by 2030, going further than the region’s planned capacity.

Whatever the case may turn out to be, carmakers expect tremendous rise in the sale of electric-vehicles in coming time, while some predict spike in the second half of the decade, due to the decreasing battery prices that make electric cars an economical affair than the petrol based models.

Faisal Mahmood