are electric cars on the right track?

“In five years, elec­tric vehi­cles’ share of new car sales has grown expo­nen­tial­ly (…) from 1.6% of sales in 2018 to 10% in 2022.” This encour­ag­ing news high­light­ed in the Cli­mate Action Track­er 20231 report is rare enough to be worth men­tion­ing. Among the 42 indi­ca­tors of effec­tive cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion (lim­it­ing it to 1.5°C), this is the only one that is on track: elec­tric cars should account for 75–95% of sales in 2030 and 100% in 2035. “This assess­ment is jus­ti­fied, as road trans­port began its tran­si­tion ear­li­er than oth­er sec­tors,” says Jean-Philippe Her­mine. For Anne de Bor­toli, how­ev­er, this requires a caveat: “This indi­ca­tor alone does not demon­strate a mas­sive shift from com­bus­tion engine vehi­cles to elec­tric vehi­cles, as it could also reflect a steady and sus­tained increase in trans­port demand.”

Trans­port is respon­si­ble for around 14% of glob­al green­house gas (GHG) emis­sions, and its con­tri­bu­tion is expect­ed to increase in the future. The major­i­ty of these emis­sions are due to road trans­port, which accounts for around 12% of glob­al emis­sions. The trans­for­ma­tion of the sec­tor is essen­tial to mit­i­gate cli­mate change, and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion plays a key role2. Over their life­time, elec­tric cars emit less GHG than com­bus­tion engine cars in most coun­tries3.

How has the auto­mo­tive indus­try man­aged to get on the right track? “Most devel­oped coun­tries have rel­a­tive­ly ambi­tious tar­gets and polit­i­cal will when it comes to elec­tric cars,” says Anne de Bor­toli. Jean-Philippe Her­mine adds: “Elec­tric cars are an exist­ing and eco­nom­i­cal­ly attrac­tive tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tion for decar­bon­is­ing the trans­port sec­tor. They also offer co-ben­e­fits, such as improved air qual­i­ty and reduced depen­dence on import­ed fos­sil fuels.” Most of this rapid growth in sales is being dri­ven by coun­tries that have pri­ori­tised elec­tric vehi­cle sales in their polit­i­cal agen­das, as high­light­ed in the Emis­sion Gap Report 20244: For exam­ple, in 2023, elec­tric cars account­ed for 93% of car sales in Nor­way, 74% in Ice­land, 60% in Swe­den, 54% in Fin­land, 41% in Bel­gium and 38% in China.

“Near­ly two-thirds of glob­al elec­tric car sales are in Chi­na,” points out Anne de Bor­toli. “This is not a coin­ci­dence: the coun­try has been devel­op­ing poli­cies to pro­mote elec­tric vehi­cles since the 2000s, includ­ing sub­si­dies for pro­duc­tion and pur­chase.” These poli­cies have enabled the coun­try to devel­op a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in the man­u­fac­ture of elec­tric vehi­cles, while also reduc­ing air pol­lu­tion and oil imports. In the Euro­pean Union, the goal of ban­ning the sale of com­bus­tion engine vehi­cles by 2035 sends a clear sig­nal to the auto­mo­tive indus­try, and some coun­tries have even short­ened the dead­line to 2030 (the Nether­lands, Ire­land, Slove­nia and Swe­den6). The Cli­mate Action Track­er high­lights oth­er coun­tries that are per­form­ing well in this area: Indone­sia, India and South Africa.

In emerg­ing coun­tries, the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency (IEA) notes that elec­tric vehi­cles still account for a rel­a­tive­ly small share of the car mar­ket, but sev­er­al fac­tors point to fur­ther growth7. “In India, pro­duc­tion-relat­ed incen­tives are sup­port­ing domes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ing. In Brazil, Indone­sia, Malaysia and Thai­land, cheap­er mod­els, main­ly from Chi­nese brands, are dri­ving the adop­tion of these vehi­cles. In Mex­i­co, sup­ply chains are devel­op­ing rapid­ly, boost­ed by access to sub­si­dies under the US Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act,” says the IEA. Anne de Bor­toli adds: “Future trans­port demand sce­nar­ios show that emerg­ing coun­tries would account for only a third of trans­port-relat­ed green­house gas emis­sions. The chal­lenge of elec­tri­fy­ing these vehi­cle fleets is real, but less sig­nif­i­cant.”

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In 2023, 18% of cars sold world­wide were elec­tric. That’s a total of 14 mil­lion sales, with 95% of those in Chi­na, Europe, and the Unit­ed States. Are we already see­ing the ben­e­fits? Accord­ing to Trans­port & Envi­ron­ment (an organ­i­sa­tion pro­mot­ing clean trans­port in Europe), the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of cars in the EU should pre­vent 20 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmos­phere in 20259. Trans­port emit­ted 1.05 bil­lion tonnes of CO2 in the EU in 2024. “Total emis­sions from the trans­port sec­tor are only mar­gin­al­ly affect­ed by the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the car fleet, so we expect to see an impact a lit­tle lat­er,” says Anne de Bortoli.

What is caus­ing this? Increased demand for trans­port, but also the “SUVi­sa­tion” of pri­vate cars. Two-thirds of elec­tric mod­els on the mar­ket are large vehi­cles or SUVs, accord­ing to the IEA. “In 30 years, cars have gained an aver­age of 500 kg. The aver­age weight of a car in the Unit­ed States exceeds 1,900 kg, com­pared with 1,300 kg in the Euro­pean and Chi­nese mar­kets,” says Anne de Bor­toli. “And GHG emis­sions per kilo­me­tre trav­elled are broad­ly pro­por­tion­al to the weight of the car.” Jean-Philippe Her­mine adds: “SUVs now account for 60% of new car sales in West­ern Europe, up from 10% in 2010. This is a trend that pub­lic author­i­ties have failed to mon­i­tor close­ly. They are now tak­ing cor­rec­tive action, with Europe, and France in par­tic­u­lar, intro­duc­ing mea­sures such as weight-based penal­ties and eco-scores.” It should be not­ed that the decar­bon­i­sa­tion of road trans­port does not rely sole­ly on the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of pri­vate cars, but also on reduc­ing the num­ber of kilo­me­tres trav­elled by car in favour of active mobil­i­ty or pub­lic trans­port. The phas­ing out of com­bus­tion engine cars must also be accel­er­at­ed, by a fac­tor of 7 by 204011.

The recent geopo­lit­i­cal con­text is ham­per­ing this pos­i­tive momen­tum. “First of all, the debate is becom­ing increas­ing­ly polarised, and the polit­i­cal exploita­tion of elec­tri­fi­ca­tion is under­min­ing its momen­tum,” com­ments Jean-Philippe Her­mine. “Added to this is the cri­sis in Ukraine and the sud­den halt in progress in the US fol­low­ing Trump’s elec­tion.” Anne de Bor­toli agrees: “Between the US with­draw­al from the Paris Agree­ment and faint sig­nals of cor­po­rate dis­en­gage­ment, I fear a knock-on effect from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion on the inter­na­tion­al stage. Across the world, there are also sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges around the avail­abil­i­ty of met­als for elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, whether in terms of min­ing capac­i­ty, reserves or resources.” Accord­ing to the Cli­mate Action Track­er, elec­tric car sales pro­jec­tions are on track, although progress is still need­ed. The IEA notes that strong growth fore­casts are stim­u­lat­ing invest­ment. More than 20 major car man­u­fac­tur­ers, rep­re­sent­ing over 90% of glob­al car sales in 2023, have set elec­tri­fi­ca­tion tar­gets: “If we con­sid­er the tar­gets of all major car man­u­fac­tur­ers, more than 40 mil­lion elec­tric cars could be sold in 2030, which would be in line with the lev­el of deploy­ment expect­ed under cur­rent policies.”

“The rapid elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of cars is a prime exam­ple of how polit­i­cal will can influ­ence the suc­cess of the tran­si­tion,” argues Anne de Bor­toli. “It is cru­cial in moti­vat­ing indi­vid­u­als to make the right choic­es.” Jean-Philippe Her­mine con­cludes: “The main les­son is that the tran­si­tion is sys­temic and requires com­mit­ment from all stake­hold­ers. Pos­i­tive pub­lic pol­i­cy tools are need­ed because the tran­si­tion has social and indus­tri­al con­se­quences. Let’s cre­ate syn­er­gy, let’s take advan­tage of the envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tion to address struc­tur­al prob­lems in the mobil­i­ty sec­tor, such as depen­dence on imports.”