More than a third of all new vehicles sold worldwide by 2030 will be electric, according to the IEA. This is a doubling of his prediction made just two years ago. Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief summarize the report. The IEA describes the growth as “explosive”: from only 1% of global car sales in 2017, up to 14% last year, and now 18% expected by the end of 2023. china has consistently dominated these sales while the new policies in the USA and EU they also drive growth. Electrification ambitions of car manufacturers they keep pace or, in the case of Europe, a little ahead of governments. It means this petroleum fuels will begin to decline in the next two years. The IEA warns, however Growth in SUV sales nearly wiped out all emissions savings from electric transportation last year. SUVs now account for almost half of global car sales (mainly in the US, Europe and India), including 40% of electric vehicles. The clear implication is that the success story of vehicle electrification could be negated by this appetite for these large, inefficient vehicles.
More than one in three new vehicles sold in 2030 will be electric thanks to the “explosive” growth of the market, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The influential Paris-based group says electric cars already are on track to account for 18% of sales by 2023. with new growth-boosting policies in the US and the EUthe share of electric models in 2030 will now be more than double what was expected just two years ago.
Expansion means that the demand for petroleum-based fuels such as petrol and diesel in the road transport sector will begin to decline in just two years. Around 5% of current oil demand will have been wiped out by 2030add.
The IEA’s new Global EV Outlook report concludes that, by the end of the decade, electric car sales are on track to reduce the equivalent annual emissions of the entire German economy..
However, the agency notes that the growing popularity of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) is a ‘major concern’. Last year, the Growth in sales of these large energy-guzzling models nearly canceled out emissions reductions from record sales of electric vehicles..
Exponential growth
More than 10 million electric cars sold by 2022, reducing global emissions by 80 million tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e), according to the IEA.
The agency adds that sales are expected to reach 14 million by the end of this year. This would be equivalent to 18% of global car sales by 2023, up from 14% the previous year and just 1% in 2017.
On this trajectory, these vehicles will have almost quadrupled their market share since 2020, when they represented less than 5% of sales.
The “exponential” growth in electric car sales can be seen in the chart below. China (red) has consistently dominated the marketaccounting for approximately 60% of global sales in 2022.
Sales of electric cars between 2010 and 2023, million cars. Figures for 2023 are IEA estimates / SOURCE: IEA
The other two key players are the The US and the EU, which recently increased their 2030 targets to reduce road transport emissions. In recent months, the IEA notes that both have “passed legislation to match their electrification ambitions”.
According to the new report, a combination of the new CO2 targets for cars and vans in the EU and the package of new measures in the Inflation Reduction Act combined with actions at state level will continue to drive sales of electric cars in the coming years years.
Under the IEA Stated policy scenario (STEPS)which takes into account the policies and measures put in place by governments, The market share of electric cars will double to 36% by 2030. This narrows the “implementation gap” between action and targets set by governments, which in total would raise this share to 40%.
As the chart below indicates, this is a significant upward adjustment from the agency’s previous outlook. In its 2021 projections, the IEA said electric cars would reach 15% of sales by 2030, a level almost reached as early as 2022. Last year, the IEA said existing policies would lead the share of electric cars to only 21% in 2030.
[Outlooks for electric vehicles’ share of overall global sales, %, 2020-2030, in the IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), from successive editions of the agency’s “global EV outlook” reports. Each line indicates the outlook given in that year / SOURCE: IEA. Chart by Joe Goodman for Carbon Brief using Highcharts]
In addition to governments, Automakers have also announced their own EV sales targets.
The chart below shows how the targets set by these original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) compare to the commitments announced (yellow dots) and acted upon (green dots) by governments. It indicates that Business ambitions are in line or, in the case of Europe, slightly ahead of governments.
Automakers’ 2030 targets for EV sales shares in 2030 (grey area) and sales shares in IEA’s STEPS and Announced Pledges (APS) scenarios / SOURCE: IEA
The IEA points it out in all major markets, these company targets have come after major government policy announcements and net zero targets, “showing how political ambitions can spur corporate announcements..”
Deep cuts
The rapid growth of electric car sales under existing government policies is expected to have a significant impact on fossil fuel use. says the IEA Oil demand for road transport is expected to peak around 2025 in the STEPS scenario.
The rise of electric vehicles on the roads would eliminate the need for 5 million barrels of oil per day by 2030. This accounts for about 5% of current global oil demand.
The IEA notes that, in general, this would mean a emissions reduction of 700 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) by the end of the decaderoughly the annual emissions of Germany or Saudi Arabia.
(This figure takes into account the fossil fuels used in the generation of electricity to run the fleet of electric cars).
(The IEA’s emissions calculations are based on “well-to-wheels of cars’ fuel consumption, rather than full life-cycle emissions. However, even when emissions from battery and car manufacturing are taken into account, EVs have significantly lower emissions than their fossil fuel counterparts under most circumstances.)
If governments go further and meet the targets that have been set for both electric vehicles and clean energy generation, 770 MtCO2e of emissions would be avoided.
In this scenario, called Announced Pledges (APS) scenario, nations would be about two-thirds of the way to the IEA zero net emissions scenario for 2050 (NZE)which complies with the 1.5ºC warming objective of the Paris Agreement.
To bridge the remaining gap, shown in red in the chart below, the IEA says governments should make faster progress in the decarbonisation of trucks and buses in particular.
It points out that 25% of the emissions related to electric vehicles avoided in the NZE can be attributed to the electrification of heavy vehicles.
Avoided net emissions from the deployment of electric vehicles, 2022-2030, in the three future IEA scenarios. These include a net zero scenario by 2050 (NZE), government pledges (APS) and government policies that have been implemented (STEPS) / SOURCE: IEA
Mastery of SUVs
Continued growth in sales of large sport utility vehicles (SUVs) it nearly wiped out the emissions cuts achieved by selling electric vehicles last yearaccording to the IEA.
SUVs now account for almost half of global car sales, including 40% of electric vehicles. They are growing in popularity all over the world, especially in the USA, Europe and India.
The IEA says this “overwhelming domain” is a “significant concern”. The size of SUVs means they require more energy to run, more materials to build and, in the case of electric models, larger batteries. All this means greater emissions and greater environmental impact per mile travelled.
By 2022, CO2 emissions from driving SUVs increased by 70 MtCO2e, according to the IEA, with sales grew even as the broader auto market contracted. This effectively cancels out most of the 80 MtCO2e emissions reductions from new electric vehicle sales that year.
In general, the IEA says that 330 m SUVs on the road today emit around 1 GtCO2e.
About 16% of SUVs sold in 2022 were electric, slightly above the 14% share of electric vehicles in the overall market. As the chart below shows, an increasing proportion of electric cars on the market in all countries are SUVs or other large cars.
Number of different models of electric cars available in selected countries by size in 2018 and 2022 / SOURCE: IEA
As with other electric vehicles, these electric SUVs cause emissions to shift relative to if they had a combustion engine. By 2022, says the IEA 150,000 barrels of oil a day avoided because of people driving electric SUVs.
In fact, the agency says that while electric SUVs accounted for 35% of all electric cars in 2022, their share of oil displacement was higher at around 40%, as SUV drivers tend to use their cars more than owners of smaller cars.
However, the report notes that in addition to driving emissions, “mitigating the impacts of larger battery sizes will also be important.” Note that the larger amounts of minerals needed to build SUV batteries can cause CO2 emissions from processing and manufacturing to be over 70% higher than normal electric car batteries.
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Josh Gabbatiss is a Climate and Energy journalist Carbon Brief
This article is published under a CC license
