The 2.1 million electric car sales in 2019 represent a 6% growth from the previous year, down from year-on-year sales growth at least above 30% since 2016. Three underlying reasons explain this trend:
The infrastructure for electric-vehicle charging continues to expand. In 2019, there were about 7.3 million chargers worldwide, of which about 6.5 million were private, light-duty vehicle slow chargers in homes, multi-dwelling buildings and workplaces. Convenience, cost-effectiveness and a variety of support policies (such as preferential rates, equipment purchase incentives, and rebates) are the main drivers for the prevalence of private charging.
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Publicly accessible chargers accounted for 12% of global light-duty vehicle chargers in 2019, most of which are slow chargers. Globally, the number of publicly accessible chargers (slow and fast) increased by 60% in 2019 compared with the previous year, higher than the electric light-duty vehicle stock growth. China continues to lead in the rollout of publicly accessible chargers, particularly fast chargers, which are suited to its dense urban areas with less opportunity for private charging at home.
Transport modes other than cars are also electrifying. Electric micromobility options have expanded rapidly since their emergence in 2017, with shared electric scooters (e-scooters), electric-assist bicycles (e-bikes) and electric mopeds now available in over 600 cities across more than 50 countries worldwide. An estimated stock of 350 million electric two/three-wheelers, the majority of which are in China, make up 25% of all two/three-wheelers in circulation worldwide, driven by bans in many Chinese cities on two-wheelers with internal combustion engines. About 380 000 light commercial electric vehicles are in circulation, often as part of a company or public authority vehicle fleet.
About half a million electric buses are in circulation, most of which are in China. Although the number of new registrations in 2019 was lower than in previous years due to a gradual subsidy phase-out from 2016 and a decline in the overall bus market, the bus fleets in a number of city centres in China are near-fully or fully electrified and contribute to improve the air quality. Driven by similar air quality concerns, bus electrification is also gaining ground in many other regions: the City of Santiago de Chile is home to the largest electric urban bus fleet outside of China.
Case studies of electric bus deployment in Helsinki (Finland), Shenzhen (China), Kolkata (India) and Santiago de Chile (Chile) highlight the unique nature of each public transit system, the roll-out of electric buses facing context-specific challenges related to network size, ridership, degree of sector privatisation and the availability of funding streams other than fare revenues.
With Covid-19, urban public transit, including buses, will face challenges of providing high-capacity and affordable services while ensuring health security. There is a risk that commuters may opt temporarily or definitively for personal vehicle options. However, in dense cities of the developing and developed world alike, urban buses provide a key means of transport that is not easily substitutable by cars without exacerbating already severe congestion. Hence, the future of public transit in general and electric buses in particular will be balanced between the impacts of the pandemic, the overall capacity of the urban transport system, and continued government support.
Opportunities for electrification can be seized over the coming decade even in modes where emissions are hard to abate such as heavy-duty trucks, aviation and shipping. Global sales of electric trucks hit a record in 2019 with over 6 000 units, while the number of models continue to expand. High-power chargers are being developed and standardised globally. Research on dynamic charging concepts, as well as demonstrations of catenary line solutions, may enable expansion of the range of operations for heavy-duty and long-distance operations for regional buses and long-haul trucking. Electrification of shipping operations at ports is increasingly common and is gradually being mandated by legislation in Europe, China, and, in the United States, California. In aviation, electric taxiing (i.e. the electrification of ground operations in aircraft) offers immediate potential for pollutant and CO2 emissions reductions and operational cost savings for airlines.
Policy actions for electric vehicles depend on the status of the electric vehicle market or technology. Setting vehicle and charger standards are prerequisites for wide electric vehicle adoption. In the early stages of deployment, public procurement schemes (e.g. for buses and municipal vehicles) have the double benefit of demonstrating the technology to the public and providing the opportunity for public authorities to lead by example. Importantly, they also allow the industry to produce and deliver bulk orders to foster economies of scale. Emerging economies can scale up their policy efforts for both new vehicles and second-hand imports.
Tax rates that reflect tailpipe CO2 emissions can be conducive to increased electric vehicle uptake. Fiscal incentives at the vehicle purchase, as well as complementary measures (e.g. road toll rebates and low-emission zones) are pivotal to attract consumers and businesses to choose the electric option. Local governments are key in proposing and implementing measures to enhance the value proposition of electric vehicles. The use of local low- and zero-emission zones can steer car purchase decisions far beyond just those zones and may influence the relative resale value of internal combustion engines and electric powertrains.
There is common understanding that government support for electric vehicle purchases can only be transitional, as sale volumes increase. In the near term, a point will be reached when technology learning and economies of scale will have driven down the purchase cost of electric vehicles and mass-market adoption is triggered. For the first time a decrease in government spending for electric car purchase incentives was observed in 2019, while both consumer spending and total expenditure on electric cars continued to increase. At the national level, both China and the United States witnessed substantial purchase subsidies reductions or partial phase out in 2019, but there are cases where these reductions were met by increases in local government support. In China the central government was planning in 2019 to culminate a phase-out that dates to 2016, though, in the face of bleak electric car sales in the second half of 2019, the subsidy scheme was extended through 2022. Yet some other countries extended or implemented new purchase incentives schemes in 2019 or early 2020, for example, Germany and Italy.
Other countries with increasing policy activity to support electric vehicles are Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, India and New Zealand. For example, Chile seeks to establish energy efficiency standards for new vehicles sold by car manufacturers or importers, including multipliers for electric and hybrid vehicles in the calculation of the sales average car efficiency.
In China, policy makers were quick to identify the auto market as a primary target for economic stimulus. Among other measures, the central government encouraged cities to relax car permit quotas, at least temporarily, complemented by strengthening targeted New Energy Vehicle measures. In the European Union, at the time of writing, existing policies and regulations were being maintained and countries like France and Germany announced increased support measures towards electric vehicles for the remainder of 2020.
This report explores the outlook for electric mobility to 2030 through two IEA scenarios: the Stated Policies Scenario, which incorporates existing government policies, and the Sustainable Development Scenario, which is fully compatible with the climate goals of the Paris Agreement. The Sustainable Development Scenario incorporates the targets of the EV30@30 Campaign3 to collectively reach a 30% market share for electric vehicles in all modes except two-wheelers by 2030.
With the projected size of the global electric vehicle market, expansion of battery manufacturing capacity will largely be driven by electrification in the car market. Indeed the electrification of cars is a crucial driver in cutting unit costs of automotive battery packs that can be used in a variety of road modes. By 2030, the light-duty vehicle fleet (cars and light commercial vehicles) represents the largest part of the fleet of electric four-wheelers, regardless the scenario. China and Europe lead this deployment, as policies promote electrification.
In 2030, in the Stated Policies Scenario, global electricity demand from electric vehicles (including two/three-wheelers) reaches 550 TWh, about a six-fold rise from 2019 levels. The share of demand due to electric vehicles in total electricity consumption at a national/regional level grows to as high as 4% in Europe. In the Sustainable Development Scenario, with demand rising nearly eleven-fold relative to 2019, to almost 1 000 TWh, the share of total demand ranges from 2% in Japan to 6% in Europe.
In both scenarios, electricity demand on slow chargers represent the majority of electric vehicle electricity demand (mainly due to a continuing dominance of private charging). Fast-charging infrastructure is gradually deployed to respond to the growth in relative shares of electric vehicles with higher battery capacity and power requirements, e.g. buses and trucks.
In 2019, electric vehicles in operation globally avoided the consumption of almost 0.6 million barrels of oil products per day. In 2030, in the Stated Policies Scenario, the electric vehicle fleet displaces around 2.5 mb/d of oil products. In the Sustainable Development Scenario, it displaces 4.2 mb/d of gasoline and diesel.
In 2019, the electricity generation to supply the global electric vehicle fleet emitted 51 Mt CO2-eq, about half the amount that would have been emitted from an equivalent fleet of internal combustion engine vehicles, corresponding to 53 Mt CO2- eq of avoided emissions. 2ff7e9595c
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