Opinion

ICE cold

The internal combustion engine (ICE) has been a great friend to us for over a century now. It's powered our cars and delivered many of our dreams. The world as we know it wouldn't be possible without the motor car and its trusty ICE. Times change though. The question that's on the lips of many people today is whether the moment has come for a new tech to take over. 

Today, we have hybrids, electrics, natural gases and hydrogen waiting in the wings, but are they really ready to fly?  For a moment let's forget the chatter that accompanies this topic and the marketing spiel that all too often comes out.  Let's take a look at the stats. Statistics tell the story. 

The sales of AFV by the end of the third quarter in the EU totalled 415,896 units, up 19.8% on 2014 figures according to European Automobile Manufacturers Association.  That's impressive growth. In the third quarter of this year sales of AFV continued to soar reaching almost 130,000 units.  That's up 13.4 on the previous year's quarter. 

Electric vehicle registrations showed a substantial increase rising from 17,488 units in Q3 2014 to 28,360 units in Q3 2015. Demand for new hybrid vehicles also grew by over a third coming in at 53,183 units. There's a long way to go before the ICE gets put in the deep freeze.  Over the first nine months of 2015, total new passenger car registrations increased by almost 9% to reach around 10.5 million units. 

AFV accounted for 415,000 which is around 4% of total vehicle sales.  It's a small number, but it is a significant number. Going by this Diffusion of Innovation (DIO) Theory, a social science model that explains how new tech breaks through, AFV are now into the early adopter phase. 

The innovators make up the first 2.5% of buyers. These are the people who are willing to take risks, have close links to scientific sources behind the innovation and have the capacity to absorb financial failures.  The next group are called the early adopters.  This group is said to have opinionship leadership and they make up 13.5% of the market. 

The bigger question is when's the tipping point?  Well, the magic number when all of a sudden the majority start to realise something is a good idea and take action. It's somewhere between 15 and 18 percent. At this point the early majority come on board and the market begins to turn. 

When we're talking about progress on AFV this is the number that we should be looking at. And there's merit looking at countries and niche markets like cities to see how sales are responding and buyers are behaving.  

Take Norway for example. It registered e-vehicle sales of 22% in October this year. It's passed the tipping point that the DIO talks about. What's going to happen? Is Norway set to see its ICE market thaw? The climate for AFV is changing.

Authored by: Steven Schoefs