Our team at @BloombergNEF published our 10th annual Electric Vehicle Outlook today!
A quick thread on some key findings:
@BloombergNEF 1. EV sales are headed for another record year. Despite the headlines to the contrary, global EV sales continue to grow and are set to rise about 20% this year. combustion vehicle sales peaked in 2017 and have no real route back to that peak.
@BloombergNEF Still, sales growth is much slower than past years and some markets have stalled. That’s been expected by BNEF for some time, but is also a significant threat to climate targets governments have put in place. There’s no room for complacency.
3. Electrification of commercial vehicles is a bright spot, with just under a million sales expected this year. Other areas like two/three wheelers and buses have already achieved high levels of EV adoption.
4. Battery prices in China are plummeting. year-to-date cell prices for LFP cells in China are $53/kWh. Overcapacity and low raw material prices are a factor, but processes and technology are also still improving.
We’re nowhere near the end of how good this technology can get.
5. Lithium-iron-phosphate is taking over the battery market. It is set to cross 50% of the passenger EV market in the next 2 years, dramatically reducing the need for nickel, manganese and cobalt in the years ahead.
6. EVs are being driven more than combustion cars. This varies by market, with the US a major outlier. High mileage drivers are switching to electric because of lower costs. It’s kilometers not individual cars that matter for oil demand and emissions.
7. The plug-in hybrid revival is real, but the impacts are uncertain. Ranges are rising, and the current wave of PHEVs are aimed at real consumers, not just regulatory compliance. Still, lots of variation on how much they’re used in electric mode.
8. Hydrogen fuel cell car sales: down and out. Sales are falling for two years now. The market is now concentrated in South Korea due to very generous incentives.
More Ferraris were sold than fuel cell cars last year.
Let’s stop talking about this.
If you want to talk about a gas in cars, CNG vehicles are taking off in India. Half a million of them were sold there last year, compared to 9,000 global fuel cell vehicle sales.
9. Oil demand peak for road transport is just three years away. Watch China, it’s hitting there soon.
That’s it for now!
BNEF clients can find the full report here:
Exec summary available publicly here: ~
A huge thank you to the many BNEF analysts who worked on the outlook this year. Thanks in particular to @agrant49 and Aleksandra O'Donovan, @siyi_mi, @RyanAFisher @CoreyBCantor @maynieyang @kdampofo @YayoiSekine @AndyLeachBatt @EvelinaStoikou and many more!
Finally, I know there are many groups that think this will all go faster and that 100% of car sales will be electric by 2030.
That’s great, go out and create the change you want to see. There’s still room to move the needle on all of this.
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Lots of headlines written about how EV demand is faltering. Is it?
Global EV sales are on pace for a record year. Heading for around 14 million sold, up 36%.
For now, this looks much more like a winnowing down of who is competitive in the market than a general drop-off in demand.
Pure-play EV automakers are running away with it. They now account for 7% of global vehicle sales.
Are EVs just a rich world phenomenon?
No, they're growing fast in emerging economies like India, Thailand and Indonesia.
EV models in the $10,000 range mean more growth ahead.
EVs have benefitted significantly from policy support, and would not be where they are without it.
But in most cases that support has been as technology neutral as possible. Fuel cell vehicles were eligible for all the same support, sometimes more. And yet, here's the result:
It's worth digging into just how extreme the incentives are now for fuel cell vehicles. In California buyers are eligible for the state subsidy (up to $7,500), national tax credit (up to $7,500), plus up to $30,000 in manufacturer cash back, and a $15,000 fuel card.
This isn't BNEF saying it (though we agree), it's Sinopec.
Overall oil demand in road transport will keep growing a bit longer due to diesel use in heavy trucks.
But even there, there's a big shift underway. EV and fuel cell trucks have jumped to 5% share of sales in just a few years.
My latest piece for @business looks at how much EVs actually add to total electricity demand. It's probably less than you think: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
@business There will be around 29 million plug-in passenger vehicles on the road by the end of the year. All those together will add around 0.2% to global electricity demand
Global electricity demand is a big number, what about places like Norway, where EVs are already over 20% of the vehicles on the road?
There, they're adding about 1.4%, but the denominator is big in Norway because it's cold and heating is mostly electric.
A few years ago, many people were predicting imminent shortages in cobalt as battery demand surged.
Prices ran up in the last year as EV demand really took off. But they’re now down by 40% from the highs. Why?
The supply side of this story is relatively simple: Glencore ramped up production from the Mutanda mine. But many people have missed how quickly cobalt is being engineered out of the demand side.
We launched BNEF’s 2022 EV Outlook today! There's lots of information in the publicly available exec summary, which you can find here: about.bnef.com/electric-vehic…
A few interesting highlights in this thread
The EV fleet is growing very quickly. We now expect 77 million passenger EVs on the road by 2025. But that’s still dwarfed by the number of electric mopeds, scooters, motorcycles and three-wheelers in Asia.
The EV revolution still rides on 2 wheels for now.
Oil displacement from EVs reflects the same dynamic, but shifts as the passenger fleet grows. BNEF expects oil displacement from EVs to hit 2.5m b/d by 2025.
Gasoline demand peaks in 2026 and overall road transport oil demand in 2027.