Electric vehicle market needs still higher growth and carmakers zero-emission goals
“There are 9-million bicycles in Beijing, that’s a fact.” The opening lyrics to that 2005 hit song was a conservative estimate back then, and today millions of those bicycles have been replaced by planet-warming cars.
To achieve that, 63% of total car sales in China would have to be zero-emission by the end of the decade, with that share rising to 87% by 2035. That is higher than the country’s target of having 40% of new vehicles electric or run on clean energy — including biogas — by 2030, while EVs should be the “mainstream” by 2035.
The transportation sector accounts for 7% of China’s total greenhouse gas emissions. That is lower than most developed countries, but China’s challenge is that its car market is growing much more rapidly. The car ownership rate in China is about 180 per 1,000 people compared with about 600 in the EU. If China reaches the same motorisation rate as the EU has now, it will have 500-million more vehicles by midcentury.