Electric car sales will continue their “explosive growth” this year and reach nearly a fifth of the global market, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday.
The underlying trend toward electrification of the vehicle fleet will have major implications for the energy sector, shaving 5 million barrels per day (mb/d) off oil demand by 2030, the IEA said in a report on the subject. The total oil demand forecast in 2023 is 101.9 mb/d.
According to this work, more than 10 million electric cars were sold in 2022 worldwide, “and sales are expected to grow another 35% this year to 14 million units.” “This explosive growth means that the market share of electric cars has risen from 4% in 2020 to 14% in 2022 and is expected to increase further to 18% this year,” according to the latest projections from the Paris-based international agency.
The IEA notes that electric cars are breaking through fastest in the world’s largest markets in terms of new car volumes: China, the United States and Europe. The former Middle Kingdom has a head start: nearly two out of three electric cars in the world are now sold there, and its factories dominate the sector of batteries and the components needed to manufacture them.
At a time when environmental regulations are becoming increasingly stringent and the European Union plans to ban the sale of combustion-powered cars by 2035, the IEA sees the market share of electric cars reaching 60% in these three geographical areas by 2030.
Beyond these large markets, the IEA notes encouraging trends for direct zero-emission personal mobility within other countries: “Electric car sales tripled in India and Indonesia last year, albeit from a modest base, and more than doubled in Thailand.” IEA Director Fatih Birol said the rapid emergence of electric cars is causing “a historic transformation in global car manufacturing.”
This trend “will have significant implications for global oil demand,” he warned: electric cars “will wipe out a need for at least five million barrels of oil per day by 2030,” especially since after passenger cars, “electric buses and trucks will follow.”
