In January 2024 Bloomberg generated a lot of media buzz when it announced that sales of gasoline-powered vehicles peaked in 2017. “With 2022 data now available, BNEF is confident the global market for internal combustion vehicles peaked in 2017 and is now in structural decline.” (Unfortunately, the full report is behind a pay wall.)[1]
The data is damning. Global ICE sales peaked in 2017 at 86 million vehicles. In that year only one million plug-in vehicles were sold. By 2022, 10 million plug-in vehicles were sold worldwide and only 69 million ICE or Internal Combustion Vehicles were sold, according to Bloomberg News in a follow up article Carmakers can kiss pre-pandemic combustion car sales goodbye. And that trend has continued through 2023.
“This may seem self-evident to those watching the market closely, but is likely jarring for others. . . Forecasts for oil demand issued just a few years ago still assumed steady growth in sales of combustion vehicles well into the 2030s, says Bloomberg.”[2]
Still, the realization snuck up on me and many other EV advocates. Bang. Just like that it was obvious to everyone: EVs are ascendant and “gassers” or combustion vehicles are in decline.
Nothing is certain; of course, the oil industry could pull a rabbit out of its hat and convince policy makers worldwide to kill EVs. They’re pulling out all the stops for sure. Just gaze at all the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) they’re spreading on social media, especially here in the USA where the oil lobby is exceptionally powerful.
Others read the numbers too. The Bloomberg report was preceded by a study from the Rocky Mountain Institute provocatively titled “The end of the ICE age.” Here’s a handy RMI chart showing where we are and where we may be headed from RMI’s Global EV and ICE market share forecast.[3]
Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu beat both RMI and Bloomberg to the same conclusion using earlier data from Bloomberg. “In fact, combustion vehicle sales appear to have peaked in 2017. . . And it seems unlikely that combustion vehicles will be able to reclaim much of their lost market share.”[4]
World in Data’s Hannah Ritchie and Mark Roser took a look at the data this March and found that “These figures suggest that global sales of non-electric cars peaked in 2018. This aligns with other estimates published elsewhere; for example, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that sales peaked in 2017.”[5]
In the USA, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that 16% of new light-duty vehicle sales in 2023 were hybrids and plug-in vehicles. Interpolating from their chart, ~7% were battery-electric vehicles, the remainder ~9% were gasoline-hybrids. Accordingly, 93% were vehicles with a combustion engine.[6]
What’s left unsaid by EIA is that as the percentage of EV sales grows the percentage of combustion vehicles decline. And even in the USA, EV sales are projected to continue growing.
All of this is good news for clearing the air of transportation pollution, reducing global warming gases, reducing our dependence on mining petroleum, and cutting financial support for petro dictators in Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Here’s my tally of the market for new plug-in cars or Light-Duty Vehicles for 2023. This includes plug-in hybrids that still use a combustion engine.
The US has a long ways to go to reach European levels of EV adoption, let alone market leader Norway. But US market leader California shows that it can be done here as well.
[1] “The World Hit ‘Peak’ Gas-Powered Vehicle Sales — in 2017,” Bloomberg.Com, January 30, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-30/world-hit-peak-gas-powered-vehicles-as-evs-gain-market-share.
[2] Bloomberg News, “Carmakers Can Kiss Pre-Pandemic Combustion Car Sales Goodbye – BNN Bloomberg,” BNN, March 9, 2023, https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/carmakers-can-kiss-pre-pandemic-combustion-car-sales-goodbye-1.1893191.
[3] Matt Solomon, “The EV Revolution in Five Charts and Not Too Many Numbers,” RMI, September 21, 2023, https://rmi.org/the-ev-revolution-in-five-charts-and-not-too-many-numbers/.
[4] Marcus Lu, “Have Combustion Vehicle Sales Already Peaked?,” Visual Capitalist, April 9, 2023, https://www.visualcapitalist.com/combustion-vehicle-sales-peak/.
[5] Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “Tracking Global Data on Electric Vehicles,” Our World in Data, March 12, 2024, https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales.
[6] “Electric Vehicles and Hybrids Surpass 16% of Total 2023 U.S. Light-Duty Vehicle Sales – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA),” accessed April 7, 2024, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61344.
