EV sales are on the rise globally, but progress in Australia remains sluggish – here are five charts that depict past and future trends for EVs.
As governments and industry make commitments to reaching net zero emissions and, gradually, do better by the environment, investment in technologies reliant on renewable energy such as electric vehicles, or EVs, is paramount.
But while EV sales are on the rise globally, progress in Australia remains sluggish.
A 2023 report published by IEEE Spectrum describes the uptake of EVs as predicated not only on the technology existing to build vehicles to combat climate change, but also on political and economic factors.
“Electric vehicles are more than just a new technology for combating climate change,” states report author Robert N Charette. “In the United States, for instance, policymakers view EVs as the tip of the spear for a vast program of government-directed economic nationalism — the economic, environmental, and societal change aimed at completely reshaping the nation’s US $26 trillion economy away from fossil fuels.
“They see normal market forces as inadequate to meet the imposed climate deadlines.”
In Australia, market forces can stagnate true progress; there are currently no clear targets for EVs of fuel emissions standards.
“At the moment, everybody knows climate change and sustainability [are] a major issue,” Nee Nee Ong FIEAust CPEng EngExec, Senior Electrical Engineer with GHD, recently told create.
“But industry, organisations and government are having a hard time trying to have great things happen in this area.”
As governments drag their feet, independent industry bodies outline potential ways to approach the energy and climate crisis.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published an array of data pertaining to EVs sales, critical minerals policy, fossil fuel imports, offshore wind potential and other aspects of the energy sector. Data contained in its Global EV Outlook report tells a story about historical and projected trends in the EV industry — and how EVs could help achieve net zero targets.
Here are five graphs that explain the uptake of EVs in Australia and globally.
EV sales
The IEA’s data outlines sales in two categories: sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) and sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
The below graph shows how EV sales in Australia started slowly but have since recently increased at pace. Equally, the volume of PHEVs sales remained similar to that of BEVs until 2019, when the plug-in hybrid option began to spike upwards considerably.
At the same time, the number of EVs sold in Australia 2022 is only a small proportion of sales made across the globe in the same year.
The below graph shows the world’s total EV sales reaching 10 million in 2022; Australia’s 40,000 is a far cry from the global figure.
A similar trend to Australia can be seen, however, in the increasing preference for PHEVs over BEVs. Also, the exponential rate of growth is clear across the world as it is in Australia.
EV sales share
To gauge the number of EVs as a proportion of all vehicles sold — electric or otherwise — we must look instead at the EV sales share.
The below graph shows the sales share of EVs until last year (note that no IEA data was published specifically for Australia).
Looking ahead, what does the future of EV sales look like? The predictions outlined in the Global EV Outlook — covering EV sales in 2025 and 2030 — have been made based on existing sales data, and could see sales hit almost 37 million by the start of the next decade.
A similar picture of progress is presented when we look at projected sales share of EVs globally — and could mean that over one third of all vehicles sold in 2030 are electric.
If the coming years see increased effort from governments and industry players to cooperate, lay down progressive policies incentivising the production of electric vehicles, and advocate for further uptake by the general public, it could mean reaching that 36 per cent figure sooner than 2030 — pushing things along the path to net zero emissions, at least in the realm of vehicle transport, with more vigour than has been seen before.
Discuss the future of EVs and the energy sector at Engineers Australia’s Climate Smart Engineering 2023.
This is great, but let’s also remember that our cities would generally be nice places to live if we had fewer cars.
Hi Lachlan,
We are a Research & Development company in the Renewable space and have developed safety systems for EV charging stations for home and Utilities.
Our research in commercialising these products clearly shows a social disconnect of about 40% of housing stock are not suitable for Renewables, PV Solar panels or Battery Storage Systems.
The Utilities don’t have the infrastructure in place to deal with DC power supply and earthing arrangements.
This disconnect is represented by the elderly, social housing, a construction industry in crisis and a non existent new home buyers and can’t afford an EV. Living costs (survival mode) are far more important than a fancy car or save the planet cause and electrical at a cost won’t cut.
WWEST has the solutions for a smoother transition we are working with the Government, Utilities Regulators ect but the market resistance is a roadblock.
For the Transition to be accepted it has to be inclusive, and we have to bring everyone in and focus not on EV sales but getting the 40% along as well, then the sales will happen.
This is a National Problem and needs a national plan with all bodies working together, to find a fix.
Just a quick comment :-The days of owning a personal car are past for high density living, Each multi accommodation block should have a stable of EV’S where the occupants could sign out a vehicle from the stable for their use as required. The EV’s could be car or bike.
This would keep the residents fit and the planet pollution reduced.
For Kip Tanner, I agree that it would be great if we could get the cars out of the cities. One solution I noted in a trip to the US a short while back was the use of FREE public transport in some towns. The reduction in the number of cars was quite noticeable. I expect that the reduction in infrastructure cost would go some way toward the cost of the transport.
EVs are probably great for around town but what about the large distances we need to travel at times? How many recharges say from Melbourne to Sydney, or Adelaide to Perth?
I don’t think that “one solution fits all” is suitable for Australia. What do we do for long distances?
Some time back I read of a practice in Europe for trucks to travel across country by train (and save on cost). Is that a solution? I am not abreast of the current practices but throw it into the mix.
In terms of power supply, I do not think that windmills across the country along with transmission lines is a sensible solution. We still have to find the best solution, but in the interim, it is my view that nuclear would serve us for the time being if we can convince the Pollys that a nuclear station is in reality just a coal fired station with a different fuel to fire the boilers
This journalist (Lachlan) says EV sales in Australia are sluggish and then presents a graph showing exponential growth of EV sales has occurred in Australia. It is generally excepted that 5% EV adoption is the tipping point. Australia is already at 8.4% adoption as of June 2023. Australia is racing up the technology adoption S-curve. The transition is occurring faster than the linear projection graphs presented.