Electric Car Sales’ Acceleration Is a Win for the Climate - Horowitz

The worldwide transition to electric cars--one of the keys to limiting global temperature increases sufficiently to avoid the worst consequences of climate change--is proceeding apace. Over the past two years, electric cars’ share of global car purchases has more than tripled from 2.5% in 2019 to nearly 9 % in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The same number of electric cars that 10 years ago took a year to sell, now are gone in one week, reported IEA.

In the United States, electric car purchases more than doubled in one year alone, accounting for 4.5% of car purchases in 2021. And domestic demand is ramping up, now far exceeding supply.  By 2030, more than half of all American “passenger-car sales” will be electric cars, projects McKinsey and Company.

To be sure, to build on these promising developments and bring about, the full-scale transition from gasoline-powered cars to electric ones remains a complex, daunting and expensive task that will require additional regulatory changes, tax incentives and the widespread distribution of charging stations to speed along. Scott Keogh, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America told The New York Times that this transition is “one of the biggest industrial transformations in the history of capitalism.  The investments are massive and the mission is massive.” The auto industry appears up to the challenge, however, and “is on track to invest half a trillion dollars in the next five years to make the transition to electric vehicles,” according to Wedbush Securities, an investment firm,” reported The New York Times.  

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The phasing out of cars powered by carbon-producing fossil fuels will take a big bite out of global greenhouse gas emissions as tailpipe emissions currently account for about 15% of emissions worldwide and 30% of the greenhouse gases produced by our nation. Taken together, with new global commitments to curb methane emissions that in the short-term have many times more warming impact than carbon, the continuing rapid expansion of the use of renewable solar and wind power, and progress on reforestation, the transition to electric cars give us a fighting chance to limit the rise in global temperatures to the 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit from the pre-industrial era that scientists say is essential to preventing the worst consequences of a heated-up planet.

With the opponents of action on climate change finally realizing that outright denial of the science is no longer credible and now either exaggerating the admittedly considerable real-world impacts of the energy transition that we must make to leave a habitable planet for our children or exclaiming the impossibility of this transition, it is more important than ever to highlight positive developments on the climate front.

The progress on transitioning to electric cars is the kind of impactful positive development that deserves our attention.

 

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
 

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