Road to 2030: What will the cars of 2030 be like?

Will today's big cars get smaller, with smaller frontal areas?

Luxury car bosses don’t believe future buyers will want to compromise on size and space. They also may be limited in their ability to cut frontal areas much, because batteries for big cars will remain very large for several decades to come, and these normally fit below a car’s cabin floor, raising the whole thing and threatening to increase frontal area. Expect elaborate amounts of aerodynamics research, however; many engineers believe there are still important gains to be made in cars’ fundamental shapes. Active aero will become much more important, too: movable wings, splitters, diffusers, spoilers, air dams and gurney flaps will add cornering downforce (hence stability) but will retract when not needed.

How much better can, say, a Nissan Leaf be in nine years' time in terms of weight, range and efficiency?

The Leaf is exactly a decade old, so looking back helps us look forward. Original cars had 107bhp, a drag coefficient of 0.29Cd, weighed 1520kg with a 24kWh battery, could accelerate from 0-60mph in 9.9sec and had a battery range of around 120 miles. Today’s model is the same size, has the same drag factor and rides on the same wheelbase. With today’s biggest-available (62kWh) battery and 217bhp, the latest Leaf e+ weighs 120kg more (a modest amount, given its extra power and modern gadgetry), accelerates to 60mph in 6.6sec and has around double the original car’s battery range.

EV researchers say cars like the Leaf won’t make a similar stride in range over the next decade, because buyers are now relatively satisfied with a comfortable 200 miles and are more concerned with the paucity of EV infrastructure. Providing yet more range would add unwelcome battery weight and cost that the buyer is unlikely to want to bear. Already, the 40kWh version of today’s Leaf sells considerably better in the UK than the 62kWh headline-grabber.

Will today's EVs, be much use in 2030 or hopelessly primitive?

They will have exactly the same primary advantages as 2010 or 2030 electric cars – quietness, smoothness, ease of driving, cheap servicing and cheap fuelling – but battery degradation may become an issue. So far, batteries appear to decay in capacity somewhat less than expected. This has helped boost the residual values of second-hand EVs. The much-discussed idea of punctuating the countryside with battery banks made from time-expired EV batteries has so far failed to materialise – for lack of supply. Still, the innate shorter ranges of older cars may make them better for short-haul duties.

Will electrification mean shrinkage of the model ranges of 'full-line' brands like Ford?

This seems likely. Even before the ranges of full-line makers such as Audi and BMW began to be interspersed with electrified models, the companies were looking to reduce costs by dropping marginal models. It’s probable that post-2030-era, manufacturers will need to concentrate on mainstream cars for at least the first generation – before they can find the time and investment for, say, a Ford Focus RS EV.

Could makers leave the UK because they can't meet the targets?

That’s a realistic possibility. It all hangs on their ability to source batteries from gigafactories in Europe (most currently come from China or Korea) and ideally in the UK to avoid tariffs associated with tough, recently agreed local content rules.

SMMT boss Mike Hawes says the UK currently has 2GW of battery production capacity (all supporting the Leaf in Sunderland) and would need around 60GW for production of a million EVs by 2030. The recently announced Britishvolt venture in Northumberland, which could be running in 2023, should raise capacity to 15GW. That means several more such projects are needed – and soon – to protect UK car manufacturing in the EV era. The SMMT says 120GW-plus would be needed for the two million-a-year manufacturing volume the UK industry had in its sights only about five years ago.

What will make cars feel special when all models are similarly fast, smooth and quiet?

The key will be the designers’ and engineers’ success at creating distinctiveness and desirability and conveying quality. There are already examples of success on the market.

The magnificent Porsche Taycan, considered by many to be the world’s finest electric car, shows how superb performance, fine driving factors, refinement, great styling, watch-like quality and a huge helping of road presence can make an electric car as desirable as any ICE equivalent. The surest route to success will be understanding how to build desirability. Meeting size, performance, mechanical layout and cost targets will be easy by comparison.

How long will petrol and diesel cars still be on our roads?

One rule of thumb is that by the time ICE cars are banned, two-thirds to three-quarters of the 40 million cars on UK roads will still be ICE-powered. It takes at least 20 years to renew the country’s car parc. But there are many new unknowns: will buyers refuse to buy electric until they have to or embrace the new rules by moving now, before their ICE trade-in collapses and (possibly) fossil fuel costs rise? Research among potential EV buyers says much depends on the progress of reliable infrastructure – a matter that’s surely more and more in the hands of the government.

How polluting are today's cars in the context of other transport types, such as ships and aircrafts?

This is a huge question. First of all, there are two kinds of pollution: CO2 and greenhouse gases, which contribute to the warming of the whole earth’s atmosphere, and toxic emissions, which are most concerning and damaging to health at point sources, such as inner London. On toxic emissions, electric cars are a dream solution in areas of highest pollution: they produce nothing harmful from a tailpipe at all. Talking CO2 and boiling down the myriad figures, it appears that UK ICE car emissions are responsible for about two-thirds of all CO2 from transportation, which itself accounts for around 30% of CO2 from all sources – industry, energy generation and home heating included. Thus ICE cars generate roughly 20% of all CO2.