motorcycles

Nearly 70% of U.S. oil consumption is for transportation and transportation accounts for 28% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, technology improvements in transportation that can reduce emissions are a key element of combating climate change. The highest impact strategy is the electrification of the transportation sector, and it is definitely accelerating.

Demand for electric vehicles is growing for multiple reasons. These include long-term cost savings, tax incentives, declining battery costs, and greater environmental awareness. This year, about 2.7 percent of global passenger vehicle sales will be for electric vehicles. It is still a fairly small number, but that number is growing rapidly. It is expected to be 10% in 2025, 28% in 2030, and more than half of all vehicle sales by 2040. By that year, more than 30% of passenger vehicles on the road worldwide will be electric. The numbers for electric buses, delivery vans and trucks, mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles are expected to be even higher.

The environmental impact of electrification will be significant in reducing carbon emissions and pollution in general. Electric vehicles already reduce oil demand by a million barrels a day. By the year 2040, they will displace nearly 18 million barrels of oil a day and reduce CO2 emissions by 2.5 billion tons per year.

Electric cars still face challenges. They are still more expensive than gas-powered cars, but their cost-benefit analysis is changing rapidly as technology improvements and volume efficiencies drive down the cost of battery packs. Analysts predict that electric vehicles will achieve price parity with internal combustion vehicles in as soon as two years but in any case within the next ten years.

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Electrification of transportation sector nears tipping point

Photo, posted May 7, 2020, courtesy of Mark Vletter via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Latin America has become increasingly urbanized. In fact, about 80% of the region’s population lives in cities today and by 2050, that figure could climb to 90%. Transportation is the largest and fastest-growing source of energy-related emissions in Latin America and accounts for about a third of all of the region’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Private vehicle ownership is rising in Latin America but at the same time, the region’s rapidly growing cities have increased demand for buses, taxis, and motorcycles. Currently, an estimated 64,000 people die prematurely every year in Latin America and the Caribbean as a result of air pollution, which is mostly caused by transportation emissions.

Given this situation, major cities across Latin America – from Colombia to Argentina – are starting to adopt electric bus fleets. Latin America actually has the highest use of buses per person globally. So, the transition to electric buses is an important step toward meeting climate targets, cutting fuel costs, and improving air quality.

Medellin, Colombia – whose metropolitan area has 3.7 million people – has started to add electric buses to its fleet, the rest of which runs on natural gas. When new units arrive from China later this year, Medellin will have the second largest electric bus fleet in Latin America, after Santiago, Chile.

Worldwide, 425,000 electric buses are in operation, 99% in China. Europe has a couple of thousand while the United States has only 300. But going forward, and especially in Latin America, electric buses are the wave of the future. Estimates are that there will be 1.3 million on the roads by 2040.

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An Increasingly Urbanized Latin America Turns to Electric Buses

Photo, posted April 22, 2018, courtesy of Hans Johnson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Vehicle Electrification On The Rise | Earth Wise

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Electric Buses In Latin America

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