This was another year of grim climate news. Record heat waves are heating the Pacific Northwest. Forest fires raged in California, Oregon, Washington and the neighboring states. Tropical cyclones increased rapidly in the Pacific Ocean. And devastating flash floods inundated Western Europe and China. Man-made climate change is pushing the world towards even more extreme weather events and we have run out of time to step on the brakes, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in August (SN: 9/11/21, p. 8) .
The world needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions drastically, and quickly, if there is hope of preventing worse and more frequent extreme weather events. That means switching to renewable energy sources – and above all decarbonising transportation, a sector that is now responsible for around a quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions.
However, the path to a cleaner future is daunting and jammed with political and societal barriers, as well as scientific barriers. Perhaps that is one reason why the electric vehicle – already on the road, already overcoming many of these obstacles – has moved so dramatically into the limelight of climate solutions in 2021.
Just a few years ago, many automakers thought electric vehicles, or EVs, might be a passing fad, says Gil Tal, director of the Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California, Davis. “Now it is clear to everyone that [EVs are] here to stay. “
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Worldwide sales of electric vehicles rose sharply in the first half of 2021 and rose by 160 percent compared to the previous year. Even in 2020 – when most auto sales declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic – electric vehicle sales were up 46 percent compared to 2019. Meanwhile, automakers from General Motors to Volkswagen and Nissan have outlined plans to launch new models of electric vehicles over the next decade: GM promised to go fully electric by 2035, Honda by 2040. Ford introduced electric versions of its iconic Mustang and F-150 pickup trucks. Trucks a.
Consumer demand for electric vehicles isn’t really driving the rise in sales, Tal says. The real engine is a supply change due to government policy pushing automakers to increase their electric vehicle production. The European Union’s tightened CO2 emission laws for the auto industry came into force in 2021, and automakers have already increased production of new electric cars in the region. In 2020, China mandated that electric vehicles account for 40 percent of new vehicle sales by 2030. Costa Rica has set official exit targets for internal combustion engines.
In the United States, where transport has officially ousted power generation as the sector with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, President Joe Biden’s administration set a goal this year to make 50 percent of U.S. new vehicle sales electric – both plug-in Hybrid and all-electric – by 2030. That is a steep increase compared to the share of electric vehicles in the number of new vehicles sold in the USA today of around 2.5 percent. In September, California announced that all new cars and automobiles sold in the state must be emission-free by 2035.
There are concrete signs that automakers are really committed to electric vehicles. In September Ford announced it would build two new complexes in Tennessee and Kentucky to produce electric trucks and batteries. Energy crises related to climate change, like the Texas power grid failure in February, could also fuel interest in electric vehicles, Ford CEO Jim Farley said on September 28 on the Columbia Energy Exchange podcast.
“We’re seeing more and more extreme weather events with global warming, and that’s why people are looking at these vehicles not just for propulsion, but for … other benefits,” Farley said. “One of the most popular features of the F-150 Lightning is that you can run your house on for three days” from the truck’s battery.
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Although the EV market is growing rapidly, it is still not fast enough to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, the International Energy Agency reported earlier this year. In order for the world to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 – if the CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are offset by removing carbon – electric vehicles would have to increase from currently 5 percent of global car sales to 60 percent by 2030, the agency found .
As for the United States, even if the Biden government’s plan for electric vehicles comes true, the country’s transportation sector will still lag behind its emissions targets, researchers reported in Nature Climate Change in 2020. To achieve these goals, electric cars would have to make up 90 percent of new car sales in the US by 2050 – or people would have to drive a lot less.
And to really replace fossil fuel vehicles, electrical options must meet several benchmarks. The prices for new and used electric vehicles must fall. Charging stations must be available and affordable for everyone, including people who do not live in a household where they can connect electricity. And the range of the batteries must be extended. The average ranges have improved. About five years ago, cars had to be charged after about 100 miles; Today the average is about 250 miles, roughly the distance from Washington, DC to New York City. But limited ranges and too few charging stations remain a sticking point.
Today’s batteries also require metals that are scarce, difficult to access, or produced in mining operations with serious human rights issues. But even there solutions could be in sight, including the search for ways to recycle batteries in order to reduce material shortages (SN: 04/12/21, p. 4).
Electric cars alone are nowhere near enough to avert the worst effects of climate change. But without it, it will not be possible to slow global warming.
And in a year of grim climate news – both devastating extreme events and insanely stalled policies – electric vehicles offered a glimmer of hope.
“We have the technology. It doesn’t depend on a technology that hasn’t been developed yet, ”says Tal. “The hope is that we are much more ready now [transition to EVs] than ever.”
