Almost two years ago, CleanTechnica published my first article. I had been collecting data on global EV adoption since watching an interview with Elon Musk on TED Talks in 2019. I had mapped, recorded and extrapolated the data and thought maybe I should do something with it. EVs were constantly growing at 60% per year and the surprising conclusion was that by 2027 most new vehicles sold will be electric. So I thought I’d write an article. CleanTechnica picked it up and I’ve been with them ever since – 585 articles later. Thank you, CleanTechnica. It is yet another example of an interest turning into a hobby and becoming a job. I see it all around me in the new EV economy.
Expect to see more parking garages full of electric cars. Photo courtesy of Majella Waterworth.
This morning, while scrolling through my news feed, I was struck by this headline: “BMW M also predicts BEVs and PHEVs will overtake ICE sales as early as 2027.” I have news for BMW: by 2027, PHEVs will no longer be sold and BEVs will make up 90% of the market. If BMW doesn’t make enough BEVs, it will lose market share.
Unfortunately, production of the BMW i3 has been discontinued. It won’t make it to 2027. Photo by Majella Waterworth.
In 2020, 3.2 million plug-in vehicles were sold. In 2021 this will increase to approximately 6 million. Last year there were more than 10 million. So we expect 16 million to be sold in 2023, 25+ million in 2024, over 40 million in 2025 and over 60 million in 2026. By 2027, the game is over – the whole market is selling less than 80 million vehicles per year. year .
2027 is only four years away. Will the pace of change accelerate as more resources are found and mined, as more battery factories are built and as more car manufacturers enter the electric world? Responses to my article saw it go anyway.
“In the next few years, it could grow to 1 to 2 million growth per year, and then grow to 2 to 3 million. I don’t really see them getting more than 3 to 4 million a year. They’re not done with the FUD yet. It’s in their interest to keep it as it is, release substandard BEVs and hybrids, and fight every year to slow everything down to creep, battery, and car production.
It sounds like the ongoing approach of the Japanese automakers. But we are well above 3 to 4 million per year. Some also thought the Osbourne effect would slow people down from buying electric cars, but I’ve seen no evidence of that. The news is about supply restrictions.
“Thanks for the article. It’s an interesting topic. I took a similar but slightly different approach when extrapolating future electric car sales. I assumed that the talk of electric car sales following an exponential trajectory was fact rather than rhetorical exaggeration. I assumed that the sales volume for each year follows a simple exponent of the form: S = ax EXP(bx N); where S is the number of sales for a given year, a and b are constants, and N is an integer incremented by one each successive year. I started with the year 2015 as N=1 and after a bit of iterating I ended up with .26 and .43 for a and b respectively. Using this adjusted curve, the projection I get is 5.27 million global EV sales in 2021. With this formula, we will surpass 60 million sales in the year 2027.”
And then there are the effects on support services and the aftermarket:
“Used EVs will have a higher price as people realize the batteries last at least a decade, and used ICEs are likely to crash in the late 2020s/early 2030s, leading to early demolition and a welcome improvement in city air quality Although they could be banned anyway as diesels are increasingly coming from European cities As we are already seeing in Norway filling stations will close as sales volume decreases and they become unprofitable – either that or petrol and diesel will rise in price to It can’t come fast enough for this retired Briton who lives in rural France, drives electric and plants trees. 🙂 “
You can view the list of countries, regions and cities that ban fossil fuel cars here — there aren’t many countries that aren’t on the list, and while some dates seem far in the future, new fossil fuel cars won’t be sold long before some of these bans take effect. From memory (always a bit unreliable) this list was much shorter the last time I checked.
2027 would be a good title for a movie, I think. Revenge of the electric car indeed. The International business times of the UK would agree. They predicted in 2016 that electric cars would outsell petrol and diesel cars due to the popularity of the Tesla Model S, the BMW i3 and the Nissan Leaf. What would they have said if they could see the BYD Atto 3 and the MG 4 coming? Not to mention VW’s transformation into an EV company.
Will the Nissan Leaf still be sold in 2027? Photo by Majella Waterworth.
The UK government is well on track to exceed its target of all new cars and vans being fully electric by 2040. Like most governments in the northern hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere has some catching up to do, but there are signs of movement in Africa, India and South America. The proposed Tesla plant in Mexico should lead to a step change in South America, aided and encouraged by imports from China’s BYD.
Two years ago the future looked bright – now it looks decidedly brilliant. Germany has embraced electric cars and its automakers are producing them. China has transformed its domestic industry – it is no longer cheap garbage or inferior clones. BYD, Nio and XPeng are ready to tackle Europe. This is a new kind of Chinese luxury car manufacturer. Tesla has built three new factories and even Ford and GM are participating.
The Polestar 2 will definitely be here in 2027. Photo courtesy of Ashish Gupta
It is beyond the scope of this article to detail all the new EVs from both startups and legacy automakers, but suffice it to say there are enough to meet the 2027 target. Stop and think about the past few years – things have changed.
I don’t like paywalls. You don’t like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a restricted paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong – and it was always hard to decide what to put behind that. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then less people will read it! We just don’t like paywalls so we decided to drop ours.
Unfortunately, the media business is still a hard, cut-throat business with small margins. It’s a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay afloat or maybe even — gasping for breath – to grow. So …