More than two million electric vehicles were sold worldwide in 2018. This number is expected to rise rapidly in the coming years; BloombergNEF's predicts in its new Electric Vehicle Outlook that 10 million electric vehicles will be sold by 2025 and this number will continue to rise in the years thereafter. Some 56 million are expected to be sold by 2040. The growing demand for electric vehicles is fuelling investment by carmakers.
BloombergNEF reports that by 2040, more than half of all new cars (57.1%) sold will be electric. The figures vary by region. China leads with 68.2%, closely followed by Europe with 66.4%. The United States (US) is expected to be slightly behind in electric vehicle adoption by 2040 at 59.6%.
Billion-dollar investment
The fast-growing popularity of electric vehicles is a major driver for their development, leading to billions of investments by manufacturers. Especially in increasing production capacities, investment is substantial. Only carmakers Volkswagen, Hyundai Kia Automotive Group, Chongqing Changan Automobile and Daimler have already announced plans to invest a total of more than $100 billion in electric vehicle production. Half of this investment (more than $50 billion) will come from Volkswagen Group.
These investments are aimed at bringing new electric car models to market. By 2025, carmakers worldwide are expected to offer nearly 400 different models of electric vehicles. Once again, Volkswagen stands out in this regard; the company has plans for 80 different models of electric cars. BMW follows with 47, while China's Geely is working on 41 electric models. The top five further consists of the also Chinese Changan (34 models) and Fiat Chrysler (32 models).
China is key sales market
BloombergNEF points out that China is a key market for electric vehicles. Not only is the Chinese market larger in absolute numbers than the European or North American markets, the Chinese market has also been a major source of growth in car sales figures over the past two decades. For instance, the number of cars sold worldwide has increased from 47.5 million in 2001 to 81.4 million in 2018. Car sales in China rose from 2.4 million to 28 million units over the same period. This makes the country responsible for 76% of the increase in demand for cars worldwide.
The researchers also point to shared mobility services, such as taxis, shared cars and so-called ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. Currently, only 5% of all kilometres travelled worldwide are driven using these shared mobility services. However, this percentage is expected to rise significantly in the coming years; BloombergNEF predicts it will reach 19% by 2040. This increase will also impact the demand for electric vehicles. On the one hand, this is expected to reduce the need for consumers to have their own vehicles, while on the other hand, from mobility services, due to economic motivations, there is actually more demand for electric vehicles. It is expected that 80% of all vehicles used for shared mobility services will be electric vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles have little impact
At the same time, the impact of autonomous vehicles is actually very limited, both in terms of how travellers travel globally and energy patterns. BloombergNEF expects autonomous vehicles to make an impact on these figures only after 2030.
More figures can be found in the 'Electric Vehicle Outlook 2019' report, available here.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: BloombergNEF
