A global research house says sales of petrol and diesel cars have passed their peak and by 2030 more than 60 per cent of new cars sales will be electric vehicles.
This follows Tesla’s delivery of 95,200 cars during the three months ending June 30 besting its previous record of 90,700 deliveries set in the fourth quarter of 2018. Tesla is facing increased competition for the high-end electric sports car market as automakers from Ford to Jaguar invest billions of dollars developing their own electric lineups. Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz is selling their new battery-electric vehicles with plans to roll out more models in the coming years. Jaguar’s I-Pace all-electric SUV swept industry awards at the New York Auto Show in April.
Analysts expected the growth rate of electric vehicles to be in the 20 percent range. The 2018 numbers are in, and total U.S. EV sales came in at 361,307 for the year — up 81 percent over 2017 — according to the tracking website Inside EVs.
Research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) said sales of internal combustion passenger vehicles have likely already peaked and may never recover. By 2030, BNEF expects nearly 60 per cent of all new car sales, and almost a third of all cars, to be electric. Passenger electric vehicle sales will rise from 2 million in 2018 to 10 million in 2025, 28 million in 2030 and 56 million by 2040. The conclusions are stark for fossil fuel use in road transport.
Electrification will still take time because the global fleet changes over slowly but, once it gets rolling in the early 2020s, it starts to spread to many other areas of road transport. It is likely that global sales of conventional passenger cars have already passed their peak.
The main driver for this will be the cost of electric vehicles – one of the biggest hurdles for consumers – falling to parity with high end fuel-powered cars by 2020, as well as an increase in available models. Despite aggressive growth of EV passenger vehicles, BNEF said heavy trucks are less likely to be battery-powered. Fewer than a fifth of heavy trucks – such as long-haul freight or mining vehicles – will be EVs, instead, they would likely be powered by natural gas or hydrogen.
BNEF said the forecast increase in electric vehicles could cause electricity consumption levels to grow by 6.8 per cent globally, potentially putting a strain on the grid.
The electric vehicle market is projected to reach 26,951,318 units by 2030 from an estimated 3,269,671 units in 2019, at a CAGR of 21.1%. Encouraging investments made by governments across the globe to drive the adoption of electric vehicles create opportunities for OEMs to expand their revenue stream and geographical presence. The European market is projected to experience steady growth, owing to a well-developed infrastructure for electric vehicles, while the Asia Pacific market is the fastest due to the strong presence of major ev manufacturing OEMs.
But are the country’s electric grids prepared for them? “The broad answer is yes, the grid can handle the introduction of large amounts of EVs. The capability is there. What is needed is not more power, it’s more efficiently and strategically provided power. Cars sit around 20, 21 hours a day. There’s plenty of time to charge – so there is quite a bit of flexibility says the Electric Power Research Institute, an independent non-profit center for public interest energy and environmental research, which has been looking at grid readiness for EVs.
With the potential for EVs to become power sources for homes and for emergency back-up power after disasters, utilities will also have to start planning for power to be able to flow in two directions. And they may need figure out how to hook it all to rooftop solar and energy storage.
The will is there, the technology is there and the vehicles are spectacular.
According to a new poll 91 percent of people are dissatisfied with their cars. The other 9 percent are Tesla owners