Posted on EVANNEX on May 22, 2021 by Charles Morris

In this day and age, just about everyone who's paying attention—even stalwarts of the auto and oil industries—acknowledges that vehicle electrification is the future. But how far into the future are we talking about? Forecasts are all over the map. Automakers and governments have begun setting target dates (or, more often, "aspirational goals") for the end of the Oil Age. Fossil fuel fans tend to disparage these as unrealistic, and environmental advocates ridicule them as hopelessly timid. 

What about independent analysts? Management consultants, information providers, think tanks—whatever you call them, these outfits study technologies and markets in great detail, and prepare thick reports containing predictions backed up by reams of data, for which they charge corporate and governmental customers large sums. These outfits are staffed by experts, and they all have access to the same data, so their forecasts about the electrification of the auto industry should be fairly similar, right?

Well, not really. Looking at the numerical forecasts from different analysts, we find that their predictions differ significantly. Of course, it's hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons, for several reasons. For one thing, the various outlets don't publish their forecasts on a coordinated schedule—they all continually update their predictions as conditions change, and a forecast made this month is bound to be different from one made back in December, especially considering the economic upheavals caused by the pandemic.