It is a time of great change in the automotive industry as manufacturers seek to move from fossil fuels to electric power.
The transition will be a long and expensive process but the direction of travel is clear and the days of petrol and diesel are undoubtedly numbered.
Although these are still relatively early days, who is leading the way in this seismic shift - both in terms of car makers and countries embracing the electric future?
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Tesla might be the best known electric car maker but it is still a niche player.
Britain's biggest car maker Jaguar Land Rover is currently building a battery factory at Hams Hall in Warwickshire, recently announced a partnership with BMW to produce electric motors and has unveiled plans for electric vehicle production at Castle Bromwich in Birmingham.
BusinessLive caught up with automotive expert Dr Charles Tennant, a former member of the Tata Technologies board and chief engineer at Land Rover, to ask him who he thinks might be leading the electric race.
Where is Jaguar Land Rover at in terms of embracing the EV revolution?
Charles Tennant (CT): Last month, Jaguar Land Rover announced a major investment in electric vehicles to be manufactured here in the 海角视频.
Bolstered by a government loan guarantee, it is planning to spend £1 billion on a new lithium-ion battery factory at Hams Hall, electric motor and drive unit production at their i54 engine factory in Wolverhampton and will retool the Castle Bromwich factory to build a new Jaguar XJ.
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The redesigned Jaguar will use a brand new flexible platform called modular longitudinal architecture (MLA) it has developed in-house.
The MLA platform as designed can accommodate fully electric, hybrid and conventional gasoline engines and will be also used across their whole vehicle range in the future to save billions in investment and cost of production.
This is a very positive boost not only for JLR having had an annus horribillis with massive losses and redundancies but the 海角视频 automotive sector as well, which has seen investment halved and production tumble by 21 per cent over the past year.
The 海角视频 automotive sector is of strategic importance to the 海角视频 economy, employing as it does 856,000 people with a sales turnover of £82 billion so it is easy to see why the electric Jaguar XJ announcement has been widely welcomed in the media.
It is indeed a positive kick start for JLR after a tsunami of bad news stories.
Although JLR was the first to market with a premium luxury SUV – the award-winning Jaguar I-Pace – many industry commentators observe that it is a latecomer to the electrified future.
Where does the 海角视频 sit globally in terms of the transition to electric power?
CT: Electric vehicles and plug-in-hybrids accounted for less than one per cent of vehicles sold in the 海角视频 in 2018 with petrol at 60 per cent and diesel at 39 per cent and in a spiral of decline.
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海角视频 electric vehicle production is currently limited to the Nissan Leaf at Sunderland and the forthcoming Mini at Oxford.
Yet 2018 saw a boom in electric vehicle production with worldwide sales of 2.1 million and Deloitte is forecasting 21 million electric cars on the road globally over the next decade - about a quarter of all cars sold.
Currently, the major barrier to ownership is the higher upfront cost of the vehicle with the batteries being significant.
But battery costs are shrinking as a proportion of the total vehicle cost. Where they were 57 per cent in 2015, they are now 33 per cent and predicted to be at 20 per cent by 2025.
So the tipping point will come in the next couple of years where the electric vehicle will actually cost less than the gasoline engines they will replace, truly a creative destruction driven by innovative technology.
Another factor in ownership is the charging infrastructure, which in the 海角视频 is seen as inadequate and needs to grow exponentially to give consumers confidence.
But even this will be of little significance in the future as the electric vehicle range surpasses 300 miles and the time to charge at fast charging stations decreases to minutes rather than hours.
And of course, as more countries ban the production of fossil fuel vehicles in the next 20 years, consumers will have no choice in the matter anyway.
Furthermore, recent consumer research in the US found that 72 per cent of customers said automakers needed to offer more electric vehicles including SUVs, pick-up trucks, and minivans.
And they believed this would save them money on fuel and maintenance whereas 31 per cent said they would consider an electric vehicle for their next purchase.
How does Jaguar Land Rover's investment fit in to what's happening globally?
CT: It appears there is a growing demand curve for electric vehicles but where does this JLR investment fit into the whole picture?
Small beer really as even though the total 海角视频 investment in electric vehicles and batteries is £1.8 billion according to Reuters, this is dwarfed by the £27 billion invested in the US, £57 billion in Germany and a staggering £108 billion in China.
The US firm Tesla and Japanese Toyota started the shift to electric and all of the big players like VW, Ford, GM, BMW and Daimler have been are playing catch-up since.
For example, BMW is aiming to produce 25 electrified vehicles by 2023 and is now collaborating with JLR.
The 海角视频 was once a trail-blazer, is it now playing catch-up?
CT: In this electric future much is talked about the lithium-ion battery technology that has made it all possible.
The scientific innovation was actually created 30 years ago in the 海角视频 yet we have only one operating battery plant right now.
The Government has recognised the need for the 海角视频 to get behind battery manufacturing with its £246 million Faraday Challenge R&D programme and a £108 million Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry is already recruiting 100 engineers amid bold claims to be able to realise the establishment of a so-called gigafactory along the lines of the US firm Tesla.
The footage below tells of Jaguar's electric journey
JLR has also recognised the strategic importance of battery supply and so is building its own dedicated battery factory at Hams Hall.
Meanwhile, among this self-assured hubris, the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese have already made their move - where China accounts for an astonishing two thirds of the global battery manufacturing capacity.
In this race, they are gobbling up a significant proportion of the natural resources of lithium, cobalt, nickel sulphate, copper, aluminium and graphite required.
So, unless the 海角视频 can deliver its own seamless production supply of batteries in the hundreds of thousands per annum, this could become an Achilles' heel to the likes of JLR.
Where are most EVs being sold?
CT: If we take a holistic view of electrified vehicles (battery and hybrid) the total number in use worldwide is 5.4 million with 2.1 million sold in 2018 alone.
But in the global race to gain dominance China is already ahead with 56 per cent of all sales in 2018 amid a staggering growth of 63 per cent over the previous year.
In Europe, the growth was 34 per cent but the biggest gain came in the USA at 79 per cent, mainly driven by the Tesla Model 3 launch.
So, China is way ahead of the pack, driven by a government quota system to bolster production by its leading manufacturers such as Bejjing Automotive, Geely and SAIC.
In 2017, China produced 680,000 electrified vehicles and 487 electric car makers are already operating in the country.
These huge volume gains are being driven by the Chinese focusing on affordable entry-level electric cars, whereas in the west the vehicles have been predominantly high end expensive products such as the Tesla, BMW and Jaguar - along with the upcoming Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron.
So, for the west to catch up, we need to see more mainstream cars being electrified by the likes of Ford, Peugeot, and Renault etc.
What will the future EV market look like?
CT: It is anticipated that the number of electric vehicle models is set to triple in Europe in the next three years and the market will be flooded with around 300 models by 2025.
However, with this acceleration of new product introduction, Deloitte has made a worrying forecast that global electric vehicle production is expected to outstrip demand by up to 14 million by 2030, which inevitably means winners and losers.
The winners will be those that can leverage their brand through delivering an exceptional consumer experience with high levels of quality and reliability engineered into the product and a fantastic personalised after-sales service experience.
However, a very complex challenge exists for manufacturers, which is about forecasting the correct planned capacity for electric vehicle demand while running down their production of gasoline vehicles.
For companies like JLR, getting this wrong will cost them big time. And, as I have said before, the move to electric vehicles is merely a 21st century evolution of creative destruction, requiring the auto industry to create the disruptive innovative products at the right quality and cost base for the market.
Let us hope that JLR and the 海角视频 are among the winners in the global race to electric vehicles.