Combustion engine cars to fall to 20% of total car sales by 2050
Quantum Commodity Intelligence - The number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by the middle of the century will reach 950 million and will account for 56% of all vehicle sales in that year as policies to remove combustion engines on roads kick in.
According to a new study by energy consultancy Woodmac, global sales of internal combustion engines will fall to just 20% of new car sales by that year, with around half of that total residing in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Russia.
Ram Chandrasekaran, Wood Mackenzie head of road transport, said: "Net-zero is the new mantra and road transport is one of the low-hanging fruits. A growing list of countries and automakers are committing to carbon neutral targets and this has completely transformed the global road transport landscape."
The report estimates that more than 60% of vehicles on the roads will be electric in China, Europe and the US by the middle of the century as targets to cut emissions start to take affect.
Earlier this year, the IEA said that crude oil consumption will need to fall 75% by the middle of the century to around 25 million bpd if the world is to meet long-term pledges to restrain global growth in temperatures to 1.5-2C above the pre-industrial age.
While transport is the low hanging fruit, the growth in electric vehicles starts from a low base.
In Q1 2021, global sales of EVs totalled 550,000, according to the consultancy.
A figure it says was up 66% on the year.
Europe's refining sector is likely to be the hardest hit by a fall off in gasoline demand, the consultancy said earlier.
Around 70 million cars are sold each year.
Chargers
The Woodmac report coincides with a warning from ACEA, a trade body for Europe's car manufacturers, of a twin speed electric car market in Europe, dominated by a few rich countries.
Poorer European countries, with few charging points, risk being left behind by Brussels when it introduces new rules to drive sales in the nascent electric car market, the trade body stated.
The Netherlands has 66,665 charging points, or 30 per cent of the EU's entire network, while France and Germany each have about 45,000, or about 70% of the network.
In contrast, Romania has just 493 points, while Lithuania has 174.
Under current rules, carmakers must lower CO2 emissions from their fleets by 37.5 per cent by 2030 or face heavy fines.
But Brussels is expected to introduce a target as high as 50 per cent to bolster the number of electric vehicles sold across Europe.
The European Commission calculates this target would require around 6 million charging points by the end of this decade, compared to the 225,000 currently available.
Electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles accounted for 10 per cent of all cars sold across the EU last year, according to ACEA figures.
Germany with 194,000 was the largest market for battery cars, with 111,000 in France and 73,000 in the Netherlands. The UK, which is no longer a member of the EU and not counted in the figures, had sales of 108,000.
