This year looks set to be the "tipping point" for electric cars, says Arnoud Balhuizen, chief commercial officer at global miner BHP, with the effect to be felt first in the metals market and only later in oil. "In September 2016, we published a blog and we set the question — could 2017 be the year of the electric vehicle revolution?" said Balhuizen. "The answer is yes … 2017 is the revolution year we have been speaking about. And copper is the metal of the future." Europe has begun a dramatic shift away from the internal combustion engine, although globally there are only about 1-million electric cars out of a global fleet of closer to 1.1-billion. BHP forecasts that could rise to 140-million vehicles by 2035. "The reality is a mid-sized electric vehicle still needs subsidies to compete … so, a lot will depend on batteries, on policy, on infrastructure," Balhuizen said. Electric cars are expected to soon cost the same as traditional vehicles — as early as 2018 by some estimates. Bu...
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