Considering Going Electric? What to Know About the Future of EVs. The future for the electric vehicles industry looks bright, but there are some hurdles to overcome before EVs are more widely adopted.

Whether you're a business owner who is rethinking your fleet of company vehicles or you're simply in the market for a new car for personal use, one option that's growing in popularity is electric vehicles. The reasons are straightforward: Since these vehicles are powered by rechargeable batteries instead of combustible engines that run on gasoline, they produce zero tailpipe emissions and can travel four times as far as traditional cars, given the same amount of energy.

That's impressive and car buyers are beginning to take notice. According to the International Energy Association (IEA), electric car sales share in the United States increased from 0.2% of total car sales in 2011 to 7.7% sales in 2022. The IEA says the United States was the third largest market for EVs in 2022 following China and Europe.

"The future of electric transportation is bright," says Victor Verissimo, general manager of Electrification for Honeywell's Sensing and Safety Technologies, which develops EV safety sensors as well as other technologies used in EV manufacturing. Verissimo says EV adoption is driven by a combination of factors including: availability of incentives from local agencies and government entities; consumers' increasing concerns for the environment; the growing affordability of new technology; and the impact of the long-term cost of ownership.

"In the coming years, we will see not only greater adoption of electric passenger and light-duty vehicles but also more delivery vans, box trucks and construction equipment going electric," he says. "This will put further pressure on our electric grid, but will also spur innovations and advancements in different type of EVs—not just lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles but also fuel cell electric vehicles powered by hydrogen."

Even as ownership grows, there are safety and infrastructure considerations to keep in mind to better support widespread EV adoption. Here's a look at some of those considerations and the work that is being done to drive the EV industry forward.

Better battery safety.

The lithium-ion batteries used in EVs are powerful and efficient, but they can have drawbacks. One concern is something called a thermal runway event, which is essentially a short circuit within the battery that causes it to heat up and catch fire. "While EV fires are rare, they can influence the public's perception of EV safety and possibly their decision to transition to these types of vehicles," Verissimo says.

While governments around the world aim to provide tighter regulation and guidance on EV battery safety, Honeywell offers safety sensors that can be integrated directly into battery packs. Honeywell sensors are designed to detect particulate matter such as smoke, liquid drops, dirt, etc., in EV battery packs and energy storage systems, all of which can trigger thermal runaway.

"By enabling early notification to EV drivers to the risk of a fire caused by thermal runaway, the technology can help minimize potential injuries, property damage, or loss of life," Verissimo says.

The need for recharging infrastructure.

As EV adoption grows, energy consumption will grow exponentially. That means building owners and operators need to think about how to scale their electrical infrastructure to accommodate increased EV consumption.

"When selecting and investing in technologies for their EV infrastructure, building owners and operators need to invest in a manner that they can scale in future, rather than continually switching when circumstances change," explains Gaurav Agarwal, director of EV Solutions at Honeywell. "When investing in chargers, building owners need to weigh not only current vehicle specs and charging needs but also think about future needs. For example, a building could invest in 10 slow chargers now but that might not meet the changing needs of users as vehicle sizes increase and the need for quick charging grows. In that case, should they invest in 10 slow chargers or a mix of slow and fast?"

Agarwal says Honeywell offers a wealth of building management systems and controls to help customers integrate their EV infrastructure holistically and seamlessly with the rest of their building ecosystem. "Doing this can allow buildings to be more EV-ready not only at the upfront level but also at an operational level," he says. Honeywell's solutions also enable buildings to work within the limitations of their existing electrical infrastructure by implementing load management strategies that help improve grid resiliency, Agarwal says.

Managing the increasing demand to the power grid.

As more EVs enter the market and more facilities evolve to cater to EV recharging, the electric demand on power grids will inevitably increase. Power grids will need to improve capacity and resiliency.

"Availability of power is a lifeline of every activity and business that happens in the world," Agarwal says. "Critical infrastructure—from data centers to hospitals and airports—can't afford to have their operations go down because they're putting too much pressure on the energy grid. The ability for the grid to stay resilient and the ability for a building to stay resilient are two sides of the same equation. They both need to work in tandem for businesses to stay successful. Failure of either would lead to unintended consequences."

Grid owners must plan demand forecasts, infrastructure upgrades, and capacities extremely well, Agarwal suggests. They must also "enable customers to be able to sell back electricity, offer incentives for customers to manage their demand, subsidies for buildings to invest in their own power resources as a supplement, and/or utility rebates and incentives specific to EV adoption," he says.

In the meantime, Honeywell is leveraging its machine learning-powered cloud services to collaborate with utilities and cities in shaping their planning and policies and helping them perform demand forecasts at a macro-level with such capabilities. "Honeywell is helping both grids and buildings in overcoming their challenges so that the EVs aren't just considered a trend but are the status quo for the long term," Agarwal says.

Click here to learn more about how Honeywell is helping drive EV technology for the future.