It's Done. The Future Is Battery-Powered Electric Cars
The rise of electric cars is staggering.
Over the past decade, Teslas have gone from being the car of the uber rich to the car of the Uber driver. All of the major automakers are taking the plunge on EVs, which is driving down prices and expanding available options. Globally, this year will see more than 14 million electric cars sold, according to BloombergNEF, compared with just 700,000 in 2016. And some 23 countries have now passed a crucial EV tipping point — 5% of new-car sales — after which adoption picks up dramatically. In China, the biggest EV market, 38% of new-car sales were electric in August.
“We're off to the races on EV adoption in China now,” says Colin McKerracher, head of Advanced Transport at BloombergNEF, on this week's episode of Zero.
Despite the tacit consensus on the future of drivetrains, obstacles remain for electric cars to meet their emissions-reduction potential. China's dominance over the EV and battery supply chains has become a point of contention for other countries, as have China's domestic subsidies for electric cars. In the long term, McKerracher says the growing competition will yield a race to the top in terms of quality and efficiency. In the short term, though, it may slow climate progress.
“All of this money and all of this capital and ingenuity is fundamentally a good thing for the transition,” he says. “But it might be a question of a step or two back to make two or three steps forward.”
McKerracher joined Akshat Rathi on this week's Zero to discuss how the EV transition is tracking against climate goals, why China has succeeded where others haven't and when we'll finally see more electric cars on the road.
Listen to the full episode and learn more about Zero here. Subscribe on Apple,
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