Electric vehicles are growing in popularity, shows a new report from Navigant Research, with sales doubling in North America last year, and also seeing heightened growth in Europe and China. The report, titled “Market Data: EV Market Forecast,” analyzes the global market conditions and regulatory policies of plug-in vehicles (PEV), while projecting how the next decade of the market will grow in areas such as government interventions, vehicle economics, and infrastructure.
From 2017 to 2018, global sales of PEVs grew more than 70 percent, with almost 1.9 million vehicles sold, and projections expecting the growth to continue through 2019. There are many factors which contributed to the increasing growth, such as multiple deployments of long range battery EV and Tesla reaching full-scale production of its most affordable EV yet, the Model 3, which is now available abroad.
While the PEV market has been expanding, there are considerable setbacks that are increasingly diminishing as technology develops and primary stakeholders push for more efficient, less carbon emitting transportation. There remains limited vehicle availability, consumer awareness, and charging infrastructure, as well as threats of competition from alternative fuel solutions.
“By 2030, annual PEV sales are estimated to be between 15% and 32% of the global light duty vehicle market, producing a global PEV population between 107 million and 190 million,” says Scott Shepard, senior research analyst with Navigant Research in a press statement. “This long-term growth is expected to be propelled by improving vehicle technology economics—a function of battery innovations, government transportation energy policies, oil price projections, and movements to price carbon.”
