A new report predicts that electric cars will account for 65% of new vehicle sales worldwide by 2030. Enverus says that China and Europe are driving the increase in electric vehicle adoption.
Based on faster-than-expected moves to electric vehicles, a leading provider of data and analytics for the energy industry predicts that electric cars and light trucks will account for 65% of new sales globally in 2030 and 85% in 2035.
The Enverus report also predicts that the shift to electric vehicles will displace 2.7 million barrels of oil per day by 2030 and up to 5.2 million barrels of oil per day by 2035. Total oil current used in the areas covered in the report, including the US, Europe, China and India, is approximately 18 million barrels per day.
Electric vehicle market share growth in Europe and China is exceeding expectations, said Carson Kearl with Enverus Intelligence Research, a subsidiary of Enverus. Adoption in the US is lagging in these parts of the world, he added.
Colorado, however, is one of the states where electric vehicle sales are on the rise. In 2022, battery-only vehicles and plug-in hybrids accounted for a record 10.5 percent of registrations in the state, up from about 6.5 percent in 2021, according to the Auto Dealers Association Colorado Cars.
One reason for the global growth is that electric cars are becoming more affordable, Kearl said. Declining battery prices are expected to bring the cost of electric vehicles to the same level as many gas-powered cars within about three years.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that falling prices for lithium, used in nearly all electric vehicle batteries, as well as declining prices for cobalt and copper are helping lower sticker prices.
Electric vehicle adoption has been faster in China and Europe than in the U.S. for several reasons, Kearl said.
“There’s a lot of fleet growth and a lot less geopolitical resistance to EV adoption in Europe and China,” Kearl said.
China has struggled with severe air pollution, and people there are not allowed to drive gas cars on certain days, Kearl said. “Electric vehicle adoption has really taken off there. It went from 5% in 2020 of new sales to 22% in 2022.”
Worldwide, electric vehicles accounted for around 10% of new sales by 2022, according to Enverus. In the US, nearly 6% of new sales were electric vehicles, compared to 3.2% in 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported in January.
“In the U.S., the two biggest things we’ve turned away from a consumer standpoint are cost anxiety and range anxiety,” Kearl said. “There’s also a lot of anxiety about battery performance in cold weather.”
Cold-weather performance is highly dependent on battery type, Kearl said. Tesla batteries and those with nickel-cobalt-aluminum, a newer technology, lose about 20% of their capacity, while the types prevalent in China and Europe can lose up to half their capacity .
“America is playing a bit of a catch-up game” with electric vehicles, said Tim Jackson, CEO and president of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.
“The EV map looks at least a little like blue state, red state on election nights,” Jackson added. “Blue states are moving more ambitiously toward electrification.”
Colorado follows this pattern. One of Gov. Jared Polis’ first actions after taking office in his first term in 2019 was to sign an executive order directing state agencies to develop infrastructure for electric vehicles and write policy to increase the number of electric cars The order was based on the policies of fellow Democrat and former governor John Hickenlooper.
The Polis administration’s goal is to have 940,000 electric or clean-tech cars and trucks on Colorado roads by 2030, nearly 20 percent of current registrations.
State officials are looking to extend a clean car rule, which requires manufacturers to make a certain percentage of zero-emissions cars available in Colorado, and apply similar requirements to medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.
Jackson expects the growing interest in electric vehicles to continue in Colorado.
“I think a percentage of the public thinks that EVs aren’t going to get them where they need to go,” Jackson said. “But most new cars coming online have that 300-mile range, or very close to it, which meets the needs of the majority of the traveling public.”
And automakers are bringing more electric trucks and SUVs to market, “the kinds of vehicles that Colorado consumers need or expect,” Jackson said.
“The biggest problem we have today is that most car manufacturers are not able to keep up with this demand. For someone buying a new car, it’s much easier to find a gas car than not electric step”.
