Electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to displace 2.5 million bpd of oil demand by 2030, as supportive policies and cost reductions will likely lead to constantly growing EV sales, according to a senior analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA).
“In the report, we refer to 2.5 million b/d in the case of 2030,” Platts quoted Pierpaolo Cazzola, senior energy and transport analyst at the IEA, as saying on Wednesday in Tokyo, where the agency presented its Global EV Outlook 2018.
Last year, EVs displaced 400,000 bpd of diesel and gasoil demand, mostly due to two-and-three wheelers, followed by buses and light duty vehicles, the 2018 outlook says.
A record more than 1 million electric cars were sold worldwide in 2017, with half of new sales in China, where nearly 580,000 electric cars were sold last year, a 72-percent surge from 2016, IEA said.
Despite the record new sales, only a handful of countries have significant market share—Norway remains the world’s most advanced market for electric car sales, with over 39 percent of new sales in 2017, followed by Iceland at 11.7 percent, then Sweden at 6.3 percent.
Government and local policies, as well as technological progress in performance and reduction of the costs of lithium-ion batteries helped the EV sales last year.
“However, further battery cost reductions and performance improvements are essential to improve the appeal of EVs,” the IEA said.
“The future of EVs hinges on demand for scarce materials,” the agency added, noting that the shift to EVs will increase demand for some materials, in particular cobalt and lithium. Related: Oil Prices Could Bounce Back On Geopolitical Risk
“In the IEA’s New Policies Scenario, which takes into account current and planned policies, the number of electric cars is projected to reach 125 million units by 2030. Should policy ambitions rise even further to meet climate goals and other sustainability targets, as in the EV30@30 Scenario, the number of electric cars on the road could be as high as 220 million in 2030,” the IEA said.
The EV30@30 campaign is aimed at speeding up the deployment of electric vehicles and targets at least 30 percent new electric vehicle sales by 2030. Governments supporting EV 30@30 include Canada, China, Finland, France, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
EVs are one of just four clean-energy technologies out of 38 technologies that are on track to meet the world’s long-term climate goals, make energy universally accessible, and significantly lower air pollution, IEA said last week.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Before that natural gas vehicles, though, may start taking a bite out of oil consumption, especially if the price for oil is painful and some big oil-consuming states come to the conclusion that EV era is not coming too soon, and before it has come and NG era is inevitable and infrastructure for natural gas-powered cars should be intensified.