Electrification is a key part of the transition to renewable energy, and phasing out combustion-engine vehicles will be a significant piece of that transition. Despite subsidies and tax breaks around electric vehicles in the US, the cars haven’t taken over a large percentage of market share yet, perhaps because their sticker price is still higher than that of gas-powered cars.
Zooming out to the rest of the world, though, it seems EV adoption is going pretty well. The International Energy Agency released its annual Global Electric Vehicle Outlook this week—and it says demand for electric cars is booming.
According to IEA data, more than 10 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide in 2022. That’s 10 million out of a total 75 million, or a little over 13 percent. This year, EV sales are expected to grow by another 35 percent to 14 million, putting their market share at around 18 percent.
This is a significant jump from just three years ago in 2020, when EVs had only four percent of market share. However, 2020 marked the start of the pandemic, and with countries around the world implementing lockdowns throughout the year, no one was doing much of anything nor going anywhere. Accordingly, gas prices fell to some of their lowest levels in years, so there wasn’t much incentive to go electric.