Electric vehicle market grows 35 per cent a year

By the end of 2023, more than 14 million electric cars (EVs) should have been sold worldwide, which means that one in five cars sold will be electric. This is one of the main conclusions of a recent study by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which reflects the exponential increase in demand for sustainable mobility, especially in the more developed markets, and embodies a paradigm shift in a sector that accounts for 16 per cent of the world's emissions.

According to the same study, EVs' share of the global market has been growing at a rate of 35 per cent a year and is expected to reach 18 per cent by the end of 2023, with a particular acceleration in the second half of this year.

This increase has been helped not only by a set of national policies that are part of the major decarbonisation targets, materialised in purchase incentives and the development of charging infrastructures, but also by the increase and fluctuation in fossil fuel prices. Given the growth in EVs, the IEA predicts that 5 million fewer barrels of oil will be needed per day by 2030.

Lithium, as the raw material used to manufacture batteries, as well as the increasing efficiency of its value chain, are essential for the development of this market. Taking current policies into account, demand for lithium for the EV market alone is expected to rise, according to the EIA, from 69,700 tonnes in 2022 to 228,000 tonnes in 2025, surpassing 400,000 tonnes by the end of the next decade. These figures could become even more significant in the future, given a scenario in which a series of measures planned by the various states under their decarbonisation programmes are actually adopted.

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Sources:

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/critical-minerals-data-explorer

https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/electric-vehicles#overview