Climate: 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.”
 

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.”

Anaïs Marechal