Is the move to electric cars running out of power?
By Ben Chu
Buoyant electric car sales are a must if we’re to hit our climate targets. But EV sales in the West are down and if governments want them to recover it may have to be at the expense of their own economies.
Any motorway driver will know the feeling: you’re cruising along, miles of open road seemingly ahead and then from nowhere, a slowdown.
The growth in EV sales has been remarkable. In 2020, there were 10 million EVs on the road, in 2023 there were 45 million. But sales need to stay remarkable, and the chart below shows just how.
By 2035, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says there will need to be 790 million, external EVs if we’re to hit net zero by the middle of the century.
