How Is KR 1.2 Tracking?
Passenger vehicles account for roughly half of transport emissions. Global EV adoption is steadily gaining, with sales jumping from less than 3 percent of new passenger cars in 2019 to nearly 18 percent in 2023 and a projected 20 percent in 2024. Batteries are getting cheaper and better by the year. Close to four million public charging points are up and running. By the end of this year, nearly 60 million electric vehicles should be on the road.
This is all great news, but we can’t afford to be complacent. Over the last two years, the rate of EV growth has slowed worldwide. In crucial markets like India, Japan, and Brazil, the market share for electric vehicles is stuck under 5 percent. To sustain momentum and attain a 50 percent global share by 2030, we’ll need an ambitious leap in manufacturing, from around 14 million EVs per year to 40 million or more.
Even with automakers investing heavily in electrification, we won’t hit this target without aggressive financial incentives to spur consumers to switch.
In a number of places, public policy is creating the future we need. In Norway, EVs accounted for more than 91 percent of new passenger car sales in 2023. In China, which accounts for around a third of the world’s auto sales, the EV share is pegged to reach 38 percent in 2024, despite an economic downturn and some signs of market saturation. Nearly 40 countries have committed to total phaseouts of gas-powered car sales by 2040.
This is substantial progress by any measure. But to reach our targets, we’ll need to accelerate global EV adoption–especially in Europe and the United States, where legacy stalwarts like Volkswagen, GM, and Ford are struggling to make cars that are both profitable and popular. In the U.S., Tesla’s home base, EVs stand at around 9 percent of the new car market as of 2023. We won’t stay on track with our 2040 goal–95 percent of new car sales–if automakers keep deferring their transition to a zero-emissions industry.