The electrification of road transport and its urban effects

We currently experience, mainly in developed countries, rapid growth in the adoption of private electric vehicles (EVs). The sales of EVs during the first half of 2021 increased by some 160% globally, as compared to 2020, with electric cars comprising 26% of car sales. China has led in this regard, followed by the US and Europe (Skidmore, 2021). In this commentary, we attempt to briefly highlight the features, process, and urban implications for what seems to constitute the electrification of road transport.

Mass car electrification as a revolution

The growing trend of EV adoption implies a revolution in both the public and private spheres. In the public sphere, until recent years, it has only been for all classes of railways (trains, metros, and streetcars) to be partially or mostly electric. As far as the road system is concerned, there have not been available, until recently, any regular electric cars for personal use, though the very idea of EVs emerged already in the 19th century for carriages, and gasoline-run cars were eventually widely adopted through Henry Ford’s marketing. The only electric component of road traffic has been traffic lights, which have been introduced already since the late 19th century (Kellerman, 2018).

In the private sphere, the long-term trend has been exactly the opposite, when compared to the public one, namely, that all individually used home appliances and devices have been either long electrified (e.g., stoves and refrigerators) or have been electric since their very invention (e.g., radios and vacuum cleaners). It has only been for cooking and heating that gas can optionally be used instead of electricity. Urban households, therefore, constitute energy consumers only, rather than being energy producers, as is the case for cars using gasoline or gas for power production by car engines. So far, therefore, it has been only for the production of road transport, that individuals, as well as commercial and public trucks, buses, and cars, serve as energy producers, through the purchase of liquid fuels (or gas) in gas stations, having it turned into energy by car internal-combustion engines, so that this energy eventually produces car mobility.

Thus, the use of EVs implies that the status of energy usage by individuals on the road system is that of energy users only, with the energy produced in electric power facilities, and consequentially charged into car batteries. In this, the status of individual car users on the road becomes equal to their status at their homes, while using any home appliance, rather than their continued status as energy producers while driving their cars. Furthermore, the energy source for both home appliances and EVs is the same, namely, electricity, being produced centrally at electric power stations or in alternative central energy production systems, such as solar farms and windmill systems.

The development of car electrification

Experimentation with the idea of EVs took place already back in the 1820s. However, recent attempts to produce commercial EVs for private use, simultaneously by several major automakers, have taken place mainly as of the mid-1990s, and reached a first wide adoption by the Tesla Model 3, as of 2017.

The development of electric cars has had to cope with several challenges: the size and weight of the car batteries, the power capacity of car batteries, car prices, and the duration of car battery charging. The first of these challenges was the large size and heavyweight of early car batteries, which required much of the trunk space of cars and more engine power for heavier car moving. Due to the long charging duration, for several early car models, the batteries were replaced at replacement stations, rather than for them to be charged on site. The size and weight of the batteries were reduced most drastically as of the mid-2010s, following the development of hybrid cars, equipped with both internal-combustion and electric engines.

The next challenge for EV development has been to increase the power capacity of the batteries so that the range of travel distance between charges will be extended. Currently, it was for Tesla to announce a 1400-km battery, and for Mercedes to present a 1000-km one. These travel ranges are by far higher than the equivalent ones for full-tank gasoline-run cars or hybrid ones.

Side by side with the current introduction of long-range batteries, which are planned for installation first in rather expensive car models, the prices of EVs, in general, are declining. Therefore, one may expect that within a few years the price for long-range batteries will decline as well, thus turning EVs more affordable than traditional cars (see, e.g., Hensher et al., 2021).

Another long-standing obstacle for EV penetration has been the rather long charging time. The current battery full charging time may reach some 30–40 min, which is still much longer than the gasoline filling time for non-electric cars. This problem has brought about wide installations of special power outlets for car battery charging in residential buildings, used mainly during the evening hours and thus, creating new peak hours for electric power production. However, the Israeli Storedot (2022) company has announced these days that it developed a technology for a five-minute full car battery charging time, and aiming at a further reduction, down to a three-minute full charge. A first factory for fast-charging batteries is now under construction in Vietnam. A wide adoption of this technology will bring about a battery charging time that will be equal to gasoline filling time, implying that gas stations will turn into charging stations, without a need for home and street charging outlets, and avoiding evening peaks in electricity consumption.

Reaching full car electrification

The contemporary trends in the technological development of EVS, coupled with their growing popularity, can bring about full electrification of private road transport sometime between the end of the 2020s and the mid-2030s, with trucks joining slightly later (electric buses are on the road already). As such, EVs are making much more progress than AVs (autonomous vehicles), which were supposed to reach the markets toward the mid-2020s (Kellerman, 2018), but their final development towards marketing maturity has slowed down during the coronavirus crisis.

Urban implications of EVs

The electrification process of road transport constitutes a component of the wider emergence of smart cities, from at least two perspectives. First, electric engines imply a removal of the process of energy production using any type of fuels by car engines, so that the electric engines are equipped with fewer moving parts and are coordinated electronically. In addition, and side by side with the widening installation of active security means in contemporary cars, EVs may well be viewed as a transitional phase toward the upcoming introduction of AVs. It is assumed that AVs will reduce urban traffic (Kellerman, 2018). However, until then, the introduction and mass adoption of affordable and attractive EVs, featured by low operational costs, may increase road traffic in the transitional years.

The upcoming full adoption of EVs will lead to a quieter city. Urban typical noise, being produced by car traffic, whether in CBDs and additional city centers or next to busy highways throughout metropolitan areas, has come to constitute a basic feature of modern cities (see, e.g., Augoyard and Torgue, 2005). Quieter urban roads may potentially lead to changes in the locational preferences for residence by urbanites, and potentially to new mixes of urban land uses.

Cities in which EVs will fully replace internal-combustion cars will be cleaner ones. The heavy air pollution created by the damaging greenhouse gas emissions, typical of traditional cars, may disappear from city streets. However, air pollution created by electric power stations will grow, given the increased consumption of electric power, thus bringing about a spatial concentration of the origins of such pollution. This development will accentuate the need to move to non-fossil alternative sources for the production of electricity, a trend that is already demanded by the global climate crisis.

Electric vehicle cities will, thus, benefit first by more pleasant sounds and smells, and possibly later also by better views. Still, however, the need to reduce traffic congestion through lower use-levels of private cars will remain necessary, and possibly even more so. A full transition to EVs may permit, as we mentioned already, further development of residential centers next to major highways. However, much wider transitions in urban structure and form are about to emerge in the next phase of urban transport development, once AVs will be widely adopted, possibly sometime during the 2030s (Kellerman, 2018).