The latest figures released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) show that nearly one in five new vehicles sold worldwide this year will be either fully battery electric or plug-in hybrid models. In total, one and a half million vehicles of this type are expected to be sold this year, which was around one million in 2017. According to a report in Science Magazine and Scientist, this is due to explosive growth, industry innovation and government intervention. Falling battery costs have led to long-range car deliveries, which has increased demand. In some countries, government policies, including restrictions on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, have forced people to adopt automated driving. Correspondent Madeleine Cuff writes that the result is a shift in the car industry that will reshape the world's energy use. The IEA has predicted that global demand for oil for road transport will peak in 2025. "The petrol-diesel engine has been unprecedented for more than a century, but electric vehicles are changing the situation," Fateh Birol said in a statement at the IEA. While electrifying the global vehicle fleet has climate benefits, there is also cause for concern. SUVs have been growing in popularity in recent years, accounting for 42 percent of all car sales in 2020. Along with this, electric SUVs have also made way, representing about 35 percent of electric passenger car sales in 2022. At Oxford University, Christian Brands cites this trend towards larger cars. Electric SUVs are still greener than their petrol and diesel contemporaries, but their size and weight eat away at some of the climate benefits of moving to electric vehicles (EVs). Their larger batteries also require more raw materials like cobalt and lithium, putting additional pressure on already stretched global supplies. They suggest new policies to encourage people to choose smaller EVs, such as increasing taxes for electric SUVs. 'Of course this is unpopular with policy makers because they will be afraid of losing votes. But with time as a whole 2050 could prevent up to hundreds of millions of tones of carbon emissions, if we were to do something like this in the UK.
Air pollution is another problem. According to the IAE report, in poor countries like India, electric scooters and tuk-tuk rickshaws are replacing diesel-powered vehicles, which will significantly improve urban air quality. In rich countries where petrol and diesel cars are cleaner, the situation is less clear, says Frank Kelly of Imperial College London. Frank Kelly says the benefit of an electric vehicle, from a smoke and gas emission point of view, is actually very small. Because electric vehicles still produce pollution from their tires, brakes and road use, air pollution will not be completely eliminated. We still have a huge problem in our cities.
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