EV market share will keep on rising

2020 Nissan Leaf

From Green Car Reports:

Electric-car sales will decrease in 2020 due to the global coronavirus pandemic, but not as much as sales of internal-combustion vehicles.

That's among the top-level predictions from an annual Bloomberg New Energy Finance report released Wednesday. It also predicts that electric cars will continue to gradually gain market share in the coming decades, declaring that "long-term prospects remain undimmed."  Global electric-car sales will decrease by 18% in 2020, to 1.7 million, the report predicts. But sales of internal-combustion cars are predicted to fall even faster—by 23% globally.

Electric cars are expected to account for 3% of global new-car sales in 2020, rising to 7% in 2023, at some 5.4 million units, and continuing to increase from there, according to report. [An annual  growth rate of 32.6%]

By 2040, EVs will account for 58% of new-car sales globally, and 31% of the global car fleet.  [This is a projected slowdown in the growth rate, from 32.6% per annum to 16% per annum.  Why would this happen when EVs become cheaper than petrol cars, as BNEF forecasts below?]  Bloomberg previously predicted that electric-car sales would surpass internal-combustion vehicles in 2037, and this latest report appears to renew that data point.  [If the annual growth rate remains at the level projected fro 2020-2023, 50% of total car sales will be EVs by 2030, not 2037.]

In addition, 67% of municipal buses, 24% of light commercial vehicles, and 47% of two-wheelers—including mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles—will be electric by 2040, the report predicts.

There are already over 7 million electric cars on the road, along with more than 500,000 electric buses, 400,000 electric delivery vehicles, and 184 million electric two-wheelers, the reported noted, with most buses and two-wheelers in China. Those vehicles are already impacting global energy demand.

Electric vehicles, particularly two-wheelers, are already taking out almost 1 million barrels of oil demand per day. [This implies that oil demand will fall another million barrels a day by 2023—in other words we have seen peak oil—and the peak oil price]  It predicts that EVs will remove 17.6 million barrels of demand per day by 2040[total global oil demand is roughly 100 million barrels/day], while increasing global electricity demand by 5.2%. 

Steady growth in electric-car sales will be helped by decreasing demand for internal-combustion cars, which analysts claim peaked in 2017. [Now that is very interesting—it suggests conventional car manufacturers are now in a declining market]  Falling battery prices will also allow EV costs to "cross over" with gasoline or diesel counterparts by 2025, on average, according to the report, adding that the date could vary by market. It could be 2022 for large cars in Europe, or 2030 or later for small cars in Japan or India.