Report Claims Every New Car Will Be a Hybrid By 2020

A major new report has claimed that by 2020 all new cars sold will be hybrids of one form or another, and that battery technology will be commonplace in most cars.

The report, ‘Automotive 2020: Clarity Beyond the Chaos,’ (.pdf), written by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, is based on interviews with 125 anonymous car industry executives across 15 different countries.

The findings make it clear that the car industry is currently undergoing a period of radical and fundamental change. According to one respondent, an executive with a European car company, “In the next ten years, we will experience more change than in the 50 years before.”

[Read the rest at Gas 2.0]

Sounds about right to me.  Nice to see a "major report" saying so.

Dana - how much efficiency improvements do you think we can realistically hope for in that time with Hybrids? That is, how much of the heat from braking is currently getting captured? Will there be bigger gains made by size and weight reduction?  Are PHEV's the answer?

Just curious what you think. Thanks!

I believe about 15% of the energy normally lost as heat is recovered by regenerative braking.

Hybrids aren't going to get much more efficient.  For example, the 3rd gen Prius will probably only have a slight improvement in fuel efficiency over the 2nd gen.  And there you're talking about 5 years of development from 2004 to 2009 with probably just a few percent improvement in efficiency.

Where the efficiency really improves is of course when it becomes plug-in.  And certainly you can improve efficiency by making cars smaller and lighter, and also by designing them such that the body minimizes drag.  For example, GM recently announced that they got the Volt's projected electric-only range up to the expected 40 miles by reducing some of the body's drag.

But the serious gains in efficiency will be from going to plug-in hybrid and fully electric cars.  I think by 2020 most of the new cars sold will be one of those technologies, not like today's hybrids.

My comment is similar to Dana's - by 2020 all cars being sold may be hybrids, but likely not like the current Prius or Civic, but of the PHEV and BEV types.  Large vehicles like whatever type of SUV or Pickup Truck (thinking towing requirements) may still use a 'Prius' style system - but there is a great deal of inovation potential between now and then.  It will be very interesting to see what unfolds by 2020...