Why construction, agriculture and mining EVs market worth US$30 billion by 2025?

Electric and hybrid vehicles for construction, agriculture and mining will be a US$30 billion market in 2025, according to IDTechEx's new report, "Electric Vehicles for Construction, Agriculture and Mining 2015-2025".

Pure electric is a legal requirement indoors but outdoors fuel savings and better performance is attractive to the market. Cranes and man lifters have many applications - reaching unit sales of 189,000 by 2025, predicted IDTechEx.

This industry is about to change radically, the report said, citing an example in mining, in which over 90% of the world' mine are open cast. They are often in remote areas up to 4,000m above sea level, where shipping diesel can cost more than buying it.

Consequently, there is now a move to have 350kW giant haul trucks working the floor and separately the top of the mine with electric rail-veyors lifting the ore from bottom to top.

With an all-electric solution new pollution laws can be met whilst saving money from the electricity coming from the mine's own wind turbines and photovoltaics (PV).

The electrification of vehicles has a higher value proposition in the mining vehicle industry where the costs of operation have increased in relation to the volatility of diesel prices, noted IDTechEx. In addition through electrification of vehicles the high costs of ventilation of diesel emissions inside mines can be substantially reduced.

However the mining industry is currently in a bust period after a boom period that ended in 2012 and now structural changes are planned in the coal industry. The cyclical nature of the mining industry means that large volumes of new equipment will not be acquired by mining industries before 2018, therefore delaying the adoption of electric mining vehicles.

The report also shows why the ubiquitous tractor in agriculture will be electric in volume quantities by 2025 and how new forms of vehicle design are coming.