1 in 7 cars sold globally now is electric

Mar 10, 2023

This article is published in collaboration with Quartz.

Electric vehicle (EV) sales increased in every region of the world as production increased, oil prices rose, and targeted policies aimed to support them in the market. Image: Pexels/ Kindel Media

Clarisa Diaz

Multimedia Reporter, Quartz

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Electricity

Electric vehicle (EV) car sales increased by 60% in 2022, reports Quartz.
Meanwhile, sales of conventional cars with internal combustion engines went down by a quarter in the past five years.
China leads the EV field - one in every four cars bought there in 2022 was an EV.
While the transition to EVs is positive, it is not enough to offset global CO2 emissions, say experts.

Global sales of electric cars increased by around 60% in 2022, surpassing 10 million for the first time, even though car sales broadly were soft last year.

As a result, one in every seven passenger cars bought globally in 2022 was an EV, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). In 2017, just one in every 70 cars sold was an EV.

Coinciding with this trend, sales of conventional cars with internal combustion engines are down by a quarter in the last five years. As the environmental impacts of gas-powered vehicles versus electric ones play out, more people may be convinced to purchase an EV.

A bar chart showing how electric vehicles sales have grown from 2017-2022.

There were 10.6 million electric vehicle sales globally in 2022. Image: Quartz.

Electric vehicle (EV) sales increased in every region of the world as production increased, oil prices rose, and targeted policies aimed to support them in the market.

EVs in China, EU, and the US

Markets for EVs that stand out are in China, where one in every four cars bought in 2022 was an EV; the European Union with one in five; and the United States, where nearly one in ten cars purchased last year was an EV.

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Total car sales, meanwhile, fell close to 0.5%, to around 75 million in 2022 after growing in 2021. Car markets shrunk the most in the US and EU, by 8% and 4% respectively. This was due partially to component shortages, as well as rising inflation and higher interest rates. However, places like China saw passenger car sales increase by more than 10%.

While the increase does indicate a trend in the push for electrifying vehicles, it is not enough to offset global CO2 emissions. IEA estimates that CO2 emissions from SUVs, the most popular type of car bought, worldwide reached almost billion tons in 2022.

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What's the World Economic Forum doing about the transition to clean energy?

Moving to clean energy is key to combating climate change, yet in the past five years, the energy transition has stagnated.

Energy consumption and production contribute to two-thirds of global emissions, and 81% of the global energy system is still based on fossil fuels, the same percentage as 30 years ago. Plus, improvements in the energy intensity of the global economy (the amount of energy used per unit of economic activity) are slowing. In 2018 energy intensity improved by 1.2%, the slowest rate since 2010.

Effective policies, private-sector action and public-private cooperation are needed to create a more inclusive, sustainable, affordable and secure global energy system.

Benchmarking progress is essential to a successful transition. The World Economic Forum’s Energy Transition Index, which ranks 115 economies on how well they balance energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability, shows that the biggest challenge facing energy transition is the lack of readiness among the world’s largest emitters, including US, China, India and Russia. The 10 countries that score the highest in terms of readiness account for only 2.6% of global annual emissions.

To future-proof the global energy system, the Forum’s Centre for Energy & Materials is working on initiatives including Clean Power and Electrification, Energy and Industry Transition Intelligence, Industrial Ecosystems Transformation, and Transition Enablers to encourage and enable innovative energy investments, technologies and solutions.

Additionally, the Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) is working to assemble public and private partners to further the industry transition to set heavy industry and mobility sectors on the pathway towards net-zero emissions. MPP is an initiative created by the World Economic Forum and the Energy Transitions Commission.

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