A new report from the International Energy Agency made note of the fact that, of all the technologies that the organization tracks, electric vehicles are the only one that has been making the progress necessary to limit anthropogenic climate change to under 2° Celsius.
To be perhaps a bit more clear about that, going by the goal modeling utilized by the International Energy Agency (IEA), electric vehicles (EVs) are the only profiled technology on track (or better than on track) to aid in the achievement of limiting warming to under 2° Celsius.
Not the most heart-warming truth, but not surprising either — despite all of the hoopla surrounding the public and political discussion on the matter, not much has actually been done to limit the worst of the temperature rise and “climate weirding” that’s already started to arrive. And it’s arguably too late at this point to even stop the full melting of the Greenland ice sheet, depending on who you ask….
It seems that despite the larger failure to address the causes of anthropogenic climate change, though, that EV technology uptake has been increasing rapidly. I would suppose because well-designed and -built EVs are actually a superior technology in most ways to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
It’s easier to sell someone on the idea of upgrading to a “better” technology than it is to convince them to consume less, to not jet around the world for vacations, or to consider not having children, after all.
Speaking from my personal experience having spoken to a great many Tesla owners, I’ll state bluntly that most of those I’ve spoken with went electric simply because the Model S is a superior car to the competition in nearly every way — not because of any concern about the effects of ICE vehicles on the wider environment and/or human health.
EVannex provides a bit more:
In an interview with Carbon Brief, the IEA’s chief economist Laszlo Varro said: “electric car technology is also gathering momentum. Electric cars increasingly capture the consumer’s imagination.”
The US, China, Netherlands and Norway accounted for 70% of all the electric cars sold worldwide. In 2015, China became the world’s largest electric car market. But growth was also occurring outside these countries. The number of countries with a market share of electric cars greater than 1% grew from three in 2014 to six in 2015. This growth in electric cars has been helped by a simultaneous boom in public charging infrastructure, with the installation of fast DC chargers growing by 350% in China alone in 2015. This expanding network, along with improvements in driving range, are helping to narrow the gap between electric and conventional cars, and may foster broader adoption, the IEA says.
Going by the buzz surrounding the recent Tesla Model 3 unveiling, this growth seems very likely to continue at pace or to increase (possibly rapidly).
EVs are doing well, because they are simply better than gas cars. Given a choice, I suspect almost everyone would rather drive EV than equivalent gas car. I mean, why would people purposely choose noisy, vibrating, smelly gas car over EV? I can’t say the same for other techs.
But the problems are performance, range, price, cargo volume, all of which have been getting lot better, no thanks to Zap cars. But the image of EV as overpriced snail that can barely drive to local marker still exist in minds of many.