BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 31
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The share of electric vehicles (EVs) in global new passenger car sales is set to quadruple in 2026 from 4.6 percent last year and exceed 50 percent from 2033 onwards, Trend reports with reference to Rystad Energy’s latest Energy Transition Report.
New battery electric vehicle (EV) sales, excluding hybrid vehicles, are expected to record consecutive annual growth going forward. In 2021, Rystad Energy expects EVs to take up around 6.2 percent of global passenger car sales, with the share climbing to 7.7 percent the following year.
Rystad Energy projects Europe will continue to lead electric vehicle adoption by a wide margin in years to come. Its share of electric vehicle sales is forecast to top 10 percent already in 2021 and 20 percent in 2025. North America and Asia will follow suit, albeit at a slower pace. The Middle East and South America are also projected to see increases further in the future, but the adoption rate of EVs will remain lower than rival continents for some time.
Looking at the long term, EV adoption rises steeply towards 2040 and clusters just short of 100 percent by 2050 in nearly all regions except Africa.
The rise of battery electric passenger cars will also be the prime driver for battery demand in transportation. The combined new battery demand across all transportation segments is expected to grow 15 percent annually on average between 2020 and 2050, gradually rising from 0.23 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2020 to over 1 TWh already in 2024. From then onwards, growth will speed up and demand for batteries will exceed 4 TWh in 2030, toping 10 TWh around 2040 and plateauing around 14 TWh in 2050.
Passenger cars will be, by far, the best market for new batteries, accounting for about 70 percent of total demand in the long term and for almost all demand till 2025. From that point of time, Rystad Energy expects battery adoption will start increasing in the heavy transport segment, with shipping and aviation only starting a low-level adoption from around 2030 onwards.
Although the impact of electric aviation could be very positive from a climate perspective, it would still be small in terms of gigawatt hours (GWh) of battery demand compared to the other segments, due to the relatively limited number of aircrafts (as compared to, for example, global passenger vehicles). This could obviously also change if electric aviation drives a change towards smaller but more numerous aircrafts.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn