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Gregor Macdonald
26 November 2018
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Electric vehicles motor ahead towards inflection point

Traditional auto manufacturers and middle distillate refiners should be wary that a niche technology could be about to snowball into full-scale disruption

Clayton Christiansen's classic business book The Innovator's Dilemma argues that value to innovation is an S-curve, with a long initial phase of relatively slow value growth followed by an explosive ramp-up once the disruptive innovation reaches an inflection point. Data from China and the US and China suggest that electric vehicles (EVs) might be at least close to hitting said point. "If you look at how policy is currently lined up, … EVs will be taking a 20% market share for new vehicles in China by 2025," says Hui He, senior researcher and policy analyst at the San Francisco-based International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). The ICCT analyses policy to suggest likely outcomes, an

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