Global Trends in Electric Vehicles →
In an earlier post, we learnt something that we do not see everyday, even if we work in a coal mine, as the variety of energy and the consumption end points blind us from looking at the full picture. Today, we will look at some trends that we see all around us, all the time - Electric vehicles (EVs).
For most of us, an electric car immediately reminds us of Tesla - the innovative American automobile manufacturer that is to become the world’s most valuable automobile company very soon. Tesla is also the company that created an electric car revolution. Tesla’s success, in many ways, drove other automakers to accelerate their offering of all-electric products. We saw that the transition was not overnight. Many built hybrid vehicles (HEV), range-extended electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV), before building all electric, or battery electric vehicles (BEV). However, if one is to guess which country on the planet has the most number of electric cars it would most likely be the US or EU, because of Tesla and the likes of VW or BMW (both of which make electric cars). Let’s see how the actual answer unfolds.
IEA’s global outlook and data show some impressive numbers. To quote from their report,
Only about 17 000 electric cars were on the world’s roads in 2010. By 2019, that number had swelled to 7.2 million, 47% of which were in The People’s Republic of China.
Further, despite purchase subsidies for electric cars were cut in many geographies (like tax credits in the US) and the resulting drop in electric car sales, the total number electric vehicles in China, EU and the US are still very impressive - 2.58 million BEVs in China compared to 0.88 million BEVs in the US and 0.97 million BEVs in the EU.
One would start thinking what other industries are getting transformed along with the transformation of automotive industry. The implications of this transformation are huge touching several industries from service industry, retail and insurance. The analysis of the transformation itself would give fascninating insights. That would be the topic of a future post.