Electric Vs Gasoline - The war of ecosystems.

by Nikhil Parchure

When people think of electric vehicles, they think about battery technology, electric drive train and charging systems. But to be fair, the electric vehicle revolution is far more than that. It is a total shift from the gasoline ecosystem we are living in for the past century. Let me explain what I mean by the gasoline ecosystem. Crude oil is pumped from the oil wells and then refined to produce gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, plastics, solvents, lubricants and tar. These multiple products are made from a single raw material. All these products are sold in high volumes and due to high volumes, petroleum refineries manage a near perfect (100%) efficiency. The investment required to set up oil wells, refineries and transport infrastructure is shared by 1000s of products derived from the crude oil. So when you look at the gasoline prices, it has a huge advantage of cost sharing with all other products. 

Now as the gasoline was cheaper and more energy dense than batteries storing the electricity, gasoline ecosystem won the race in the transportation sector. Prior to commercialization of gasoline cars, most of the cars were electric. In the United States companies like Baker electric were making electric cars. (See Jay Leno's Baker electric car demo : Link) but the cost effectiveness and convenience of gasoline cars made these electric cars obsolete. Gasoline cars succeeded because of the convenience and freedom from the limited range of electric cars. People using horse carts and slow trams were able to drive 10 times faster and were able to go to locations not reachable by other means available.

This boom of gasoline cars helped the development of efficient internal combustion engines and that engine technology made inroads in all modes of transportation. Trucks, buses, planes, boats and cars all shared platform developed on the gasoline ecosystem. More cars increased the demand for gasoline which in-turn boosted the output of refineries. This improved volume reflected in more efficiency and further reduction in the cost. The benefits of this cost reduction were significant and were seen across all industries. Many people blame gasoline as a major reason for the global warming but we cannot ignore the tremendous development that gasoline brought to the man-kind. We should not dismiss the achievements of gasoline as a fuel. Cars, tractors, emergency generators and even our lawn mowers are powered by gasoline engines. That may have accelerated the problems of global warming but at the beginning of the century our understanding of global warming was fairly limited. 

During this boom of the gasoline economy, one thing remained surprisingly constant and that is our source of electricity. Even though gasoline became cheaper and improved in efficiency, the internal combustion engine still could not match the efficiency of turbines in thermal power plants. Coal fired power plants are still more efficient than gasoline generators and have provided cheap electricity over past many decades. Cheap coal was hard to replace by gasoline as coal needs no refining or purification, it can be mined and directly used as a fuel. 

Now we are again at an interesting juncture in the history of the mankind. Electric vehicles with advanced battery technology are challenging the gasoline economy. People against electric vehicles may point out the cost and range as major hurdles in the mass adoption but they can not deny the fact that efficiency of the electric motor (95%) will give internal combustion engine (30% efficiency) a run for the money. 

Now the next major challenge for electric vehicle makers is the cost. Interestingly we can learn a lot from the rise of the gasoline economy. The strength of gasoline economy was not only the energy density and convenience of the system but also range of products supporting the system. To make electric vehicles successful, we can reapply the same principle to batteries (fuel storage for EVs) 

We have to make Electric vehicles part of the electric ecosystem. The war is not between who powers your car but war is between who can deliver the usable energy at the cheapest and most convenient way to the end user. The diagram below shows how the ecosystem supports various applications. Each application provides additional volume and advantage to the overall ecosystem. The base of the gasoline ecosystem is crude oil and base of new emerging ecosystem is the battery system. 

Comparing two ecosystems

As we bring more and more applications on a single platform, the efficiency of the manufacturing and cost of the system will drop. And as the cost of batteries and power electronics drops, more and more applications will become viable. This is a very good cycle which will be able to challenge the current gasoline ecosystem. Electric vehicles or any other new technology can win only if the whole ecosystem wins. The hydrogen fuel cell ecosystem is another ecosystem that can challenge the gasoline ecosystem but again to win the war, hydrogen fuel cell has to challenge the whole ecosystem and not succeed only in niche applications.  

I am convinced that the electric ecosystem will have the last laugh. The transition will be a slow gradual process and we will be able to see it pan out over next few decades. Although the issues of global warming will drive the change, the cost of the system remains the ultimate tipping point. By no means I am discrediting the gasoline ecosystem, it has contributed tremendously in the development of mankind but we need the electric ecosystem to take the next step.