Electric vehicles, or EVs, are on track to dominate global sales of passenger cars and buses by 2040, and to encroach significantly on the market for vans and short-distance trucking, according to the latest forecast from research firm Bloomberg NEF.
Heavy trucks would prove the hardest segment for electrics to crack, with the latter’s sales limited to 19 percent in 2040. Their use case would mostly be in shorter-distance applications. However, conventional heavy trucks on long-haul routes would also face other, non-electric competition — from alternatives using natural gas and hydrogen fuel cells.
“Providers of shared mobility services would choose to go electric faster than private individuals,” said Ali Izadi-Najafabadi, who leads BNEF’s coverage of shared mobility. “There are now over a billion users of shared mobility services such as ride-hailing globally. These services would continue to grow and gradually reduce demand for private vehicle ownership.”
The aggregate increase, however, would be impressive. BNEF expects passenger EV sales to rise from 2 million worldwide in 2018 to 28 million in 2030 and 56 million by 2040. Meanwhile conventional passenger vehicle sales fall to 42 million by 2040, from around 85 million in 2018. Policy support such as fuel economy regulations and China’s new energy vehicle mandate are expected to drive the EV market in the next 5-7 years before economics takes over the latter half of the 2020s.