New EV sales will be 65% of total by 2030, report says

Based on quicker-thanexpected moves to electric vehicles, a leading provider of data and analytics to the energy industry predicts that electric cars and light-duty trucks will make up 65% of new sales globally by 2030 and 85% by 2035.

The report by Enverus also forecasts that the switch to electric vehicles will displace 2.7 million barrels of oil a day by 2030 and as much as 5.2 million barrels of oil a day by 2035. The current total oil used in the areas covered in the report, including the U.S., Europe, China and India, is roughly 18 million barrels a day.

The growth in electric vehicles’ market share in Europe and China is outperforming expectations, said Carson Kearl with Enverus Intelligence Research, a subsidiary of Enverus. Adoption in the U.S. is lagging behind those parts of the world, he added.

Colorado, however, is one of the states where EV sales are rising. In 2022, batteryonly vehicles and plug-in hybrids made up a record 10.5% of registrations in the state, up from approximately 6.5% in 2021, according to the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.

One of the reasons for the growth globally is that electric cars are becoming more affordable, Kearl said. Declining battery prices are expected to make the cost of electric vehicles on par with many gas-fueled cars in about three years.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that drops in the prices of lithium, used in nearly all electricvehicle batteries, as well as decreases in cobalt and copper prices are helping lower sticker prices.

Adoption of electric vehicles has been swifter in China and Europe than in the U.S. for a number of reasons, Kearl said.

“There’s a lot of fleet growth and a lot less geopolitical resistance to EV adoption in Europe and China,” Kearl said.

China has struggled with severe air pollution and people there aren’t allowed to drive gas-powered cars on certain days, Kearl said. “EV adoption has really been taking off there. It jumped from around 5% in 2020 of new sales to 22% in 2022.”

Worldwide, electric vehicles accounted for about 10% of new sales in 2022, according to Enverus. In the U.S., nearly 6% of new sales were EVS, compared to 3.2% in 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported in January.

“In the U.S., the biggest two things that we have pushback on from a consumer perspective are cost and range anxiety,” Kearl said. “There’s also a lot of anxiety about battery performance in the cold weather.”

Cold-weather performance depends a lot on the battery type, Kearl said. Tesla batteries and those with nickel, cobalt and aluminum, a newer technology, lose about 20% of their capacity while the types prevalent in China and Europe can lose up to half of their capacity.

“The U.S. is playing a little bit of a catchup game” on electric vehicles, said Tim Jackson, CEO and president of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.