With the incredible growth in the electric car market lately, it is a good time to wonder when we can expect these environmentally friendly vehicles to dominate our roads.
The Current Situation
At the time of writing, there are believed to be over 1 billion cars on the planet. Â Right now, only a small percentage of them are battery-powered.
There may only be a few million electric cars being driven around now, but the growth rate is accelerating. From 4 million sold in June 2018, it is believed that the 5 million figure was passed early in 2019.
Future Expectations
As we have seen, more and more people are buying electric cars now. Still, there remains a huge amount of fossil fuel powered vehicles on the road to be replaced. When is this going to happen?
One interesting fact is that the Chinese authorities intend for a minimum of 1 in 5 of the country’s new vehicles to be electric or hybrid by the year 2025. Around the same time, it is predicted by PricewaterhouseCoopers that electric car batteries will cost less than combustion engines for the first time.
In Australia, it is believed that by 2030 over half of all new car sales will be for electric vehicles. Perhaps the tipping point will come when cars that use harmful fossil fuels start to get banned. In the UK, this will be in 2040, the same year as France and Taiwan. Other countries will make the move even sooner, with Norway in 2025 and Holland in 2030 among them.
It is impossible to put a date on when the last fossil fuel-powered car leaves our roads. However, the signs are that it won’t be too long before greener cars make up the majority of the traffic that we see.
