According to a report by the International Energy Agency, more than 10 million electric cars were sold in 2022 worldwide, “and sales are expected to grow another 35% this year to reach 14 million” units.
Sales of electric cars will continue their “explosive growth” this year and reach nearly a fifth of the world market, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday. The underlying trend towards the electrification of the car fleet will have major implications for the energy sector, cutting oil demand by 5 million barrels per day (mb/d) by 2030, the IEA said in a report on the subject. Total oil demand forecast in 2023 is 101.9 mb/d.
According to this work, more than 10 million electric cars were sold in 2022 worldwide, “and sales are expected to grow another 35% this year to reach 14 million” units.
“This explosive growth means that the market share of electric cars has increased from 4% in 2020 to 14% in 2022 and is expected to increase further to 18% this year”, according to the latest projections from the international agency, based in Paris.
Growth driven by the Chinese, American and European markets
It is on the first world markets in terms of volumes of new cars that electric cars are breaking through the fastest, notes the IEA: China, the United States and Europe. The former Middle Kingdom has taken a step ahead: nearly two out of three electric cars in the world are now sold there, and its factories dominate the sector of batteries and the components necessary for their manufacture. At a time when environmental rules are increasingly strict and the European Union plans to ban the sale of thermal cars by 2035, the IEA sees the market share of electric cars reaching 60% in these three geographical areas by 2030.
Beyond these large markets, the IEA notes encouraging trends for direct “zero-emission” individual mobility within other countries: “electric car sales tripled in India and Indonesia last year, even if off a modest starting base, and more than doubled in Thailand”.
IEA Director Fatih Birol said the rapid emergence of electric cars was causing “a historic transformation in global car manufacturing”. This trend “will have important implications for global oil demand”, he warned: electric cars “will erase in 2030 a need for at least five million barrels of oil per day”, especially since After passenger cars, “electric coaches and trucks will follow”.
