Pike Research, 2.8 Million Fuel Cell Vehicles, and Climate Change Posted on March 2nd, 2010
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by Aaron Turpen, EVMeme.com
(quick note – EVMeme is my latest endeavor, since I needed an outlet for humor because, well, sometimes the latest electric vehicle news is just funny)
I’m about to do something that will be considered sacrilege to some, greatly informative to others, and hilarious to a few. It’s those latter that I’m aiming for. The rest of you feel free to leave me hateful comments and fruitlessly try to change the mind of a red-headed person. I dare you.
What I’m about to do is make fun of Al Gore and climate science all in one swoop while making references to hydrogen fuel-cell (HFC) cars. I’m an equal opportunity religion basher. I’ll attach climate change, Al Gore, HFCs, or anything else. I’m notskeered.
Pike Research, which is one of those companies that makes predictions of things based on who-the-hell-knows-what in order to make guesses as to what will happen in future market events. Sort of like Al Gore. Except Pike, instead of making a hockey stick graph about planet temperatures due to evil SUV-driving rednecks, made one involving the anticipated future sales of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (of all kinds). The prediction?
2.8 million vehicles powered by fuel cells by 2020. That’s ten years from now. They’re calling it their “2020 Report.”
This report got widely distributed online. Green Car Congress picked it up (in the middle of a day of reporting a lot of non-car, climate issues too, of course), as did Auto Blog Green.
Of course, like Kevin over at HydrogenCarsNow, I really like fuel cells and think they will have a major role in our upcoming new transportation infrastructure. I cover a fair number of HFC events over at GreenBigTruck, in fact. Mostly because HFCs seem to be well-suited to commercial transportation.
Here’s my problem with Pike’s report: there are pitifully few hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles on the road right now and most automakers who have them are aiming for 2015 as their target for (low volume) mass production. Honda has something like 750 or so FCX Clarity cars on the road worldwide, Toyota has only a small percentage of that, and so forth. In fact, most of the fuel cell vehicles on the road are commercial medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Daimler AG leads the way there. In all, I’d be surprised if there are more than a couple of thousand HFC vehicles on the road right now around the globe.
So their prediction that this will increase ten-fold to 2.8 million in only a decade? Seems a little ridiculous.
Luckily, their report has a convenient blame clause: government. I love blaming government for everything just as much as the next guy (at least, the next guy who’s an American; not sure about the rest of you), but this seems a little misplaced.
But hey, that kind of escape clause works for the IPCC, Al Gore, and the rest of them, so why not Pike? After all, they appear to be using the same methodology throughout:
- Make a bunch of hokey predictions based on computer modeling of (mostly valid) data,
- Conveniently create a simple, but shocking graph to illustrate your findings,
- Publish it with a lot of scientific language that no one will read, while including your core editorializing in the “summary” report,
- Wait for the headlines to pour in, then apply for some grants for further research,
- Be sure that your predictions are far enough in the future that they will either be forgotten by the time we actually get there or leave a cop-out scapegoat in the fine print so you can blame it on them when they don’t pan out.
Easy!
3 Big Green 2010 Predictions That Didn’t Pan Out Posted on December 30th, 2009
Well, the last decade has seen a lot of predictions. Many of them optimistically claimed that the world would be a very different place by 2010 and green tech would dominate the landscape. We’d all be living in an environmentally-friendly utopia with everything but flying cars (those were a 1950s obsession).
Looking at those predictions for 2010 and where we are today, at the cusp of entering that new decade, it appears the predictions were off. Here’s my three favorite ones.
1 – Hydrogen and Hybrid Cars Will Be Everywhere
Well, that didn’t work out. Despite the Hydrogen Economy author, Jeremy Rifkin, prediction. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still a future tech with most not seeing them even entering the market for public consumption until 2015-20. Sure, every major car maker on the planet is working on some kind of H2-driven machine, but most of them make a Bentley look cheap with their current price points. So far, no major hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer has appeared to make FCs cheaply en masse. So.. it’ll still be a while.
As for hybrids being the “generational gap” between gasoline and electrics, high gas prices in the early part of this decade drove prognosticators to claim that nearly every car made would be a hybrid by 2010. Currently only one American auto maker has a hybrid that’s for sale, right now, today. Overall, there are only a handful on the market and they make up less than 2% of the total world-wide car sales market.
2 – Electric Car Tech Is About To Take Over
Back in 2005, the New York Times had an article by Robert Graham wherein he stated that “the technology is there, it just needs to be put on the street.” He was referring, of course, to electric cars (Graham heads the Electric Power Research Institute). Well.. Sorry, Mr. Graham, but the technology is still there and it still hasn’t hit the street. It turns out electric cars are a lot more expensive than people thought they would be by now. So far, batteries (specifically) haven’t caught up with expectations and are still very expensive per mile of range versus their gasoline counterparts.
3 – We’ll All Have Solar Panels On Our Houses By 2010
This one amazes me. The prediction came from a lot of sources in the early part of the 2000’s. So far, it hasn’t happened. Solar panels (photovoltaics) are still some of the most expensive power sources out there and on a small scale, like a home, they have way more costs than benefit. What’s more, most home owners are not willing to spend a large sum of money improving their home if the improvement doesn’t have a clear cost:benefit ratio. So if you can’t prove equivocally that the installation of something as expensive as solar PV ($9,000-$14,000 per home) will pay off before it’s expected lifespan is up (PV panels usually have a 5-7 year life), home owners won’t buy.
So, they aren’t everywhere and we don’t all enjoy sunlight as our home’s primary power source. Oh well.
Of course, next year starts a new decade. So I’m sure a lot of new predictions will be forthcoming. It should be interesting. Especially with 2012 coming up and the big “End of the Solstice” day on that year in which we enter the Age of Aquarius and leave behind Pisces. Ask the Mayans, their calendar runs out then too, coincidentally. Nostradamus had a few things to say about it as well. Should be fun!
The History of Medicine Posted on December 20th, 2009
I received this via email and had to share it.
I have an earache:
2000 B.C. – Here, eat this root.
1000 A.D. – That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 A.D. – That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940 A.D. – That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985 A.D. – That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.
2000 A.D. – That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root.
Thousands Protest Against Global Warming Posted on December 13th, 2009
Positive Proof of Global Warming FOUND Posted on December 11th, 2009
This is irrefutable, non-bustable, Climategate-proof data that shows global warming is REAL and that Al Gore is right!
