Electric vehicles hit the big time
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The car industry is preparing to go fully electric sooner than you might imagine - and not just because of the climate crisis.
Justin Rowlatt speaks to Bjorn Annwall, head of Volvo Cars in Europe, about why his company is one of a string of major carmakers to rush out plans in recent months to electrify their business. They intend to stop selling internal combustion engine cars as soon as 2030. What's driving it is the rapid improvement and collapsing cost of the batteries at their heart, according to Madeline Tyson of the clean energy technology research group RMI.
But how willing will people be to give up the glamour and roar of their engines for the silent speed of electric vehicles? Norway-based researcher Schalk Cloete fears that despite the technical advances, their limited range remains a deal-killer for many families. But EV fanatic and former Top Gear presenter Quentin Willson says give people a couple of days' test drive and they will soon be won over.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: Electric car logo; Credit: Lya Cattel/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Will your next car be electric? |
| 0:03.2 | I'm Justin Rowlatt and on Business Daily today I'll be looking at the rapid technological advances that could soon make electric vehicles the cheapest cars in town. |
| 0:13.8 | Over the last 10 years, the cost has come down just mind-bogglingly quickly. |
| 0:19.4 | A lot of manufacturers have this target of reaching sticker price |
| 0:24.0 | parity by around 2025. And if you don't believe her, try asking the car manufacturers themselves. |
| 0:30.8 | I would guess two-thirds of our sales in Europe will be fully electric by 2025. By 2025? So, you know, three and a half years' time. |
| 0:40.1 | Yes. |
| 0:40.7 | That's the electric car revolution here on Business Daily from the BBC World Service. So the brave new world of electric cars. |
| 1:05.9 | So I'm going to give you a picture of what it's like driving this Tesla Model 3. |
| 1:11.3 | So you don't have a key, it's all hooked up to your... |
| 1:13.7 | Quentin Wilson is a motoring journalist. |
| 1:16.4 | Back in the 1990s, he presented the BBC's car review program, Top Gear. |
| 1:21.7 | The first thing you feel when you get into this car is the ambience, |
| 1:24.6 | the light that comes in with the glass roof and the big glass area. |
| 1:29.2 | Today, he's the proud owner of a Tesla Model 3, |
| 1:32.5 | because, unlike his notoriously belligerent petrol head co-host, Jeremy Clarkson, |
| 1:38.4 | one day, 24 years ago, Quentin Fan in Love with electric vehicles. |
| 1:45.4 | And here it is, the General Motors, EV-1 electric, or as they say, in California, the |
| 1:50.9 | vaults wagon. |
| 1:52.0 | It's a seminal moment, and I remember it really, really well. I was testing what was then |
| 1:56.9 | known as GM's EV-1. General Motors spent a billion dollars producing this really wonderful |
| 2:03.2 | electric car in the early days. And I went over in Top Gear and tested it in L.A. and was amazed the way |
... |
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