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Electric cars: Boom or bust?

September 25, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Media coverage of electric cars in this country is pretty confusing. Are electric cars taking over or has the EV bubble burst?

EVs currently represent about 8% of the US new car market. But they continue to face some relatively unique headwinds in this country. A very powerful and influential oil industry makes sure that anti-EV stories occupy center stage in the media. Traditional car dealers don’t want to sell EVs because they don’t make much money from parts and service. And EVs often find themselves tangled up in American politics.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world tells a very different story. Globally, EVs constitute 20% of new car sales, but in some places, they are doing much better than that.

So far this year, almost 87% of new car sales in Norway are electric and in August, the figure was 94%. Norway has some incentives in place for EV owners, but the fact that nearly all new cars on the road are electric is far more than the result of incentives.

One might argue that Norway, a country with only 5 million people, faces a much easier task of transitioning to EVs. But how about China with its 1.4 billion people? In July, plug-in vehicles in China were 51% of new auto sales. And the numbers continue to rise.

There are plenty of articles out there explaining why electric cars just can’t meet people’s needs, have insurmountable problems, and how having too many of them would collapse electric grids and otherwise wreak havoc with society. Apparently, the Norwegians and Chinese, among a growing number of other countries, haven’t gotten the memo.

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Elbil Thinks Electric Car Sales In Norway Could Hit 100% By Next Year

Photo, posted July 27, 2024, courtesy of Amaury Laporte via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Explosive Growth Of Electric Vehicles | Earth Wise

May 25, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Not long ago, electric cars were a rarity. Ten years ago, annual global sales of EVs were only a few hundred thousand. As of today, globally, still less than one percent of all the cars on the road are electric. But that is changing rapidly.

In fact, electric vehicles are expected to capture nearly 20% of the global market this year. Global sales of EVs were 3 million in 2020 and 6.6 million in 2021. Last year, sales of electric vehicles hit 10 million and are expected to reach 14 million this year according to the International Energy Agency.

Analysts at the IEA have had to repeatedly revise their projections for future EV sales as the numbers keep going up faster than predicted. Last year, they projected that EVs would account for 21% of global sales by 2030. Now, they expect that EVs will reach 35% of sales by that year.

In the US, the EU, and China, policy efforts are in place to boost EV sales. In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act both supports the EV industry and subsidizes consumer purchases with tax credits. As a result of such policies, the IEA expects electric vehicles to account for 60% of sales across these three large markets by 2030.

Part of what is driving the boom in EV sales is that prices continue to come down for the vehicles. When operating and maintenance costs are figured in, the EVs come out considerably cheaper to own. In addition, there are starting to be price wars in the EV industry as competition heats up in the sector.

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