electric car research article

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Browse content in A - General Economics and Teaching
• Browse content in A1 - General Economics
• A10 - General
• A11 - Role of Economics; Role of Economists; Market for Economists
• A12 - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
• A13 - Relation of Economics to Social Values
• A14 - Sociology of Economics
• Browse content in A2 - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics
• A20 - General
• A29 - Other
• A3 - Collective Works
• Browse content in B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches
• Browse content in B0 - General
• B00 - General
• Browse content in B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925
• B10 - General
• B11 - Preclassical (Ancient, Medieval, Mercantilist, Physiocratic)
• B12 - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
• B13 - Neoclassical through 1925 (Austrian, Marshallian, Walrasian, Stockholm School)
• B14 - Socialist; Marxist
• B15 - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary
• B16 - History of Economic Thought: Quantitative and Mathematical
• B17 - International Trade and Finance
• B19 - Other
• Browse content in B2 - History of Economic Thought since 1925
• B20 - General
• B21 - Microeconomics
• B22 - Macroeconomics
• B23 - Econometrics; Quantitative and Mathematical Studies
• B24 - Socialist; Marxist; Sraffian
• B25 - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian
• B26 - Financial Economics
• B27 - International Trade and Finance
• B29 - Other
• Browse content in B3 - History of Economic Thought: Individuals
• B30 - General
• B31 - Individuals
• Browse content in B4 - Economic Methodology
• B40 - General
• B41 - Economic Methodology
• B49 - Other
• Browse content in B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches
• B50 - General
• B51 - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
• B52 - Institutional; Evolutionary
• B53 - Austrian
• B54 - Feminist Economics
• B55 - Social Economics
• B59 - Other
• Browse content in C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
• Browse content in C0 - General
• C00 - General
• C02 - Mathematical Methods
• Browse content in C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
• C10 - General
• C12 - Hypothesis Testing: General
• C13 - Estimation: General
• C14 - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
• C18 - Methodological Issues: General
• C19 - Other
• Browse content in C2 - Single Equation Models; Single Variables
• C20 - General
• C21 - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions
• C22 - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
• C23 - Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models
• C25 - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
• Browse content in C3 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables
• C30 - General
• C32 - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
• C34 - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models
• C38 - Classification Methods; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Models
• Browse content in C4 - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics
• C43 - Index Numbers and Aggregation
• C44 - Operations Research; Statistical Decision Theory
• Browse content in C5 - Econometric Modeling
• C50 - General
• Browse content in C6 - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling
• C60 - General
• C61 - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
• C62 - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
• C63 - Computational Techniques; Simulation Modeling
• C65 - Miscellaneous Mathematical Tools
• C67 - Input-Output Models
• Browse content in C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
• C82 - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access
• C89 - Other
• Browse content in C9 - Design of Experiments
• C90 - General
• C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
• C92 - Laboratory, Group Behavior
• C93 - Field Experiments
• Browse content in D - Microeconomics
• Browse content in D0 - General
• D01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
• D02 - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
• D03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
• Browse content in D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics
• D10 - General
• D11 - Consumer Economics: Theory
• D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
• D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
• D14 - Household Saving; Personal Finance
• Browse content in D2 - Production and Organizations
• D20 - General
• D21 - Firm Behavior: Theory
• D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
• D23 - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
• D24 - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
• D25 - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing
• Browse content in D3 - Distribution
• D30 - General
• D31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
• D33 - Factor Income Distribution
• D39 - Other
• Browse content in D4 - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
• D40 - General
• D41 - Perfect Competition
• D42 - Monopoly
• D43 - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
• D46 - Value Theory
• Browse content in D5 - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
• D50 - General
• D51 - Exchange and Production Economies
• D57 - Input-Output Tables and Analysis
• D58 - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models
• Browse content in D6 - Welfare Economics
• D60 - General
• D61 - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
• D62 - Externalities
• D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• D64 - Altruism; Philanthropy
• D69 - Other
• Browse content in D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
• D71 - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
• D72 - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
• D73 - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
• D74 - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
• Browse content in D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
• D80 - General
• D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
• D82 - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
• D83 - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
• D84 - Expectations; Speculations
• D85 - Network Formation and Analysis: Theory
• D86 - Economics of Contract: Theory
• D87 - Neuroeconomics
• Browse content in D9 - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
• D91 - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
• Browse content in E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Browse content in E0 - General
• E00 - General
• E01 - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
• E02 - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
• Browse content in E1 - General Aggregative Models
• E10 - General
• E11 - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
• E12 - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian
• E13 - Neoclassical
• E16 - Social Accounting Matrix
• E17 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
• Browse content in E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy
• E20 - General
• E21 - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
• E22 - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
• E23 - Production
• E24 - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
• E25 - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
• E26 - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
• E27 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
• Browse content in E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
• E30 - General
• E31 - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
• E32 - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
• E37 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
• Browse content in E4 - Money and Interest Rates
• E40 - General
• E41 - Demand for Money
• E42 - Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System; Payment Systems
• E43 - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
• E44 - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
• E49 - Other
• Browse content in E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
• E50 - General
• E51 - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
• E52 - Monetary Policy
• E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies
• Browse content in E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
• E60 - General
• E61 - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
• E62 - Fiscal Policy
• E63 - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
• E64 - Incomes Policy; Price Policy
• E65 - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
• Browse content in F - International Economics
• Browse content in F0 - General
• F00 - General
• F01 - Global Outlook
• F02 - International Economic Order and Integration
• Browse content in F1 - Trade
• F10 - General
• F11 - Neoclassical Models of Trade
• F12 - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
• F13 - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
• F14 - Empirical Studies of Trade
• F15 - Economic Integration
• F16 - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
• F17 - Trade Forecasting and Simulation
• F18 - Trade and Environment
• Browse content in F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business
• F20 - General
• F21 - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
• F22 - International Migration
• F23 - Multinational Firms; International Business
• Browse content in F3 - International Finance
• F30 - General
• F31 - Foreign Exchange
• F32 - Current Account Adjustment; Short-Term Capital Movements
• F33 - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
• F34 - International Lending and Debt Problems
• F35 - Foreign Aid
• F36 - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
• F37 - International Finance Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
• F39 - Other
• Browse content in F4 - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
• F40 - General
• F41 - Open Economy Macroeconomics
• F42 - International Policy Coordination and Transmission
• F43 - Economic Growth of Open Economies
• F44 - International Business Cycles
• F45 - Macroeconomic Issues of Monetary Unions
• F47 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
• Browse content in F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy
• F50 - General
• F51 - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions
• F53 - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations
• F54 - Colonialism; Imperialism; Postcolonialism
• F55 - International Institutional Arrangements
• F59 - Other
• Browse content in F6 - Economic Impacts of Globalization
• F60 - General
• F61 - Microeconomic Impacts
• F62 - Macroeconomic Impacts
• F63 - Economic Development
• F64 - Environment
• F65 - Finance
• Browse content in G - Financial Economics
• Browse content in G0 - General
• G00 - General
• G01 - Financial Crises
• Browse content in G1 - General Financial Markets
• G10 - General
• G11 - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
• G12 - Asset Pricing; Trading volume; Bond Interest Rates
• G13 - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
• G14 - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
• G15 - International Financial Markets
• G18 - Government Policy and Regulation
• G19 - Other
• Browse content in G2 - Financial Institutions and Services
• G20 - General
• G21 - Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
• G22 - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
• G23 - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
• G24 - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage; Ratings and Ratings Agencies
• G28 - Government Policy and Regulation
• Browse content in G3 - Corporate Finance and Governance
• G30 - General
• G32 - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
• G33 - Bankruptcy; Liquidation
• G34 - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
• G35 - Payout Policy
• G38 - Government Policy and Regulation
• Browse content in G5 - Household Finance
• G51 - Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
• Browse content in H - Public Economics
• Browse content in H1 - Structure and Scope of Government
• H10 - General
• H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
• H12 - Crisis Management
• Browse content in H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
• H20 - General
• H22 - Incidence
• H23 - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
• H25 - Business Taxes and Subsidies
• H26 - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
• Browse content in H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
• Browse content in H4 - Publicly Provided Goods
• H40 - General
• H41 - Public Goods
• Browse content in H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
• H50 - General
• H53 - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
• H55 - Social Security and Public Pensions
• H56 - National Security and War
• Browse content in H6 - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
• H60 - General
• H62 - Deficit; Surplus
• H63 - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
• H68 - Forecasts of Budgets, Deficits, and Debt
• Browse content in H7 - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
• H70 - General
• H74 - State and Local Borrowing
• H77 - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; Secession
• Browse content in I - Health, Education, and Welfare
• Browse content in I0 - General
• I00 - General
• Browse content in I1 - Health
• I10 - General
• I12 - Health Behavior
• I14 - Health and Inequality
• I15 - Health and Economic Development
• Browse content in I2 - Education and Research Institutions
• I20 - General
• I21 - Analysis of Education
• I23 - Higher Education; Research Institutions
• I24 - Education and Inequality
• I26 - Returns to Education
• Browse content in I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
• I30 - General
• I31 - General Welfare
• I32 - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
• I38 - Government Policy; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
• Browse content in J - Labor and Demographic Economics
• Browse content in J0 - General
• J00 - General
• J01 - Labor Economics: General
• J08 - Labor Economics Policies
• Browse content in J1 - Demographic Economics
• J10 - General
• J13 - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
• J15 - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
• J16 - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• J18 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor
• J20 - General
• J21 - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
• J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
• J23 - Labor Demand
• J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• J26 - Retirement; Retirement Policies
• J28 - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
• J29 - Other
• Browse content in J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
• J30 - General
• J31 - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
• J32 - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
• J33 - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
• J38 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J4 - Particular Labor Markets
• J40 - General
• J41 - Labor Contracts
• J42 - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
• J44 - Professional Labor Markets; Occupational Licensing
• J45 - Public Sector Labor Markets
• J46 - Informal Labor Markets
• J48 - Public Policy
• J49 - Other
• Browse content in J5 - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
• J50 - General
• J51 - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
• J52 - Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation; Collective Bargaining
• J53 - Labor-Management Relations; Industrial Jurisprudence
• J54 - Producer Cooperatives; Labor Managed Firms; Employee Ownership
• J58 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
• J60 - General
• J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
• J62 - Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility
• J63 - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
• J64 - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
• J65 - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
• J68 - Public Policy
• J69 - Other
• Browse content in J7 - Labor Discrimination
• J71 - Discrimination
• J78 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J8 - Labor Standards: National and International
• J80 - General
• J81 - Working Conditions
• J83 - Workers' Rights
• J88 - Public Policy
• Browse content in K - Law and Economics
• Browse content in K0 - General
• K00 - General
• Browse content in K1 - Basic Areas of Law
• K11 - Property Law
• K12 - Contract Law
• K13 - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
• Browse content in K2 - Regulation and Business Law
• K20 - General
• K21 - Antitrust Law
• K22 - Business and Securities Law
• K23 - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law
• K25 - Real Estate Law
• Browse content in K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law
• K31 - Labor Law
• K39 - Other
• Browse content in K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior
• K40 - General
• K41 - Litigation Process
• K42 - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
• Browse content in L - Industrial Organization
• Browse content in L0 - General
• L00 - General
• Browse content in L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
• L10 - General
• L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
• L12 - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
• L13 - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
• L14 - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation; Networks
• L16 - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics: Industrial Structure and Structural Change; Industrial Price Indices
• Browse content in L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
• L20 - General
• L21 - Business Objectives of the Firm
• L22 - Firm Organization and Market Structure
• L23 - Organization of Production
• L24 - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures; Technology Licensing
• L25 - Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope
• L26 - Entrepreneurship
• L29 - Other
• Browse content in L3 - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise
• L30 - General
• L31 - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
• L32 - Public Enterprises; Public-Private Enterprises
• L33 - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprises and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
• L39 - Other
• Browse content in L4 - Antitrust Issues and Policies
• L40 - General
• L41 - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
• L44 - Antitrust Policy and Public Enterprises, Nonprofit Institutions, and Professional Organizations
• Browse content in L5 - Regulation and Industrial Policy
• L50 - General
• L52 - Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods
• Browse content in L6 - Industry Studies: Manufacturing
• L60 - General
• L61 - Metals and Metal Products; Cement; Glass; Ceramics
• L66 - Food; Beverages; Cosmetics; Tobacco; Wine and Spirits
• L67 - Other Consumer Nondurables: Clothing, Textiles, Shoes, and Leather Goods; Household Goods; Sports Equipment
• Browse content in L7 - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction
• L78 - Government Policy
• Browse content in L8 - Industry Studies: Services
• L80 - General
• L82 - Entertainment; Media
• Browse content in L9 - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities
• L97 - Utilities: General
• L98 - Government Policy
• Browse content in M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics
• Browse content in M0 - General
• M00 - General
• Browse content in M1 - Business Administration
• M10 - General
• M12 - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
• M13 - New Firms; Startups
• M16 - International Business Administration
• Browse content in M2 - Business Economics
• M21 - Business Economics
• Browse content in M3 - Marketing and Advertising
• M37 - Advertising
• Browse content in M4 - Accounting and Auditing
• M41 - Accounting
• M49 - Other
• Browse content in M5 - Personnel Economics
• M51 - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
• M52 - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
• M54 - Labor Management
• M55 - Labor Contracting Devices
• Browse content in N - Economic History
• Browse content in N0 - General
• N00 - General
• N01 - Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods
• Browse content in N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations
• N10 - General, International, or Comparative
• N11 - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
• N12 - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
• N13 - Europe: Pre-1913
• N14 - Europe: 1913-
• N15 - Asia including Middle East
• N17 - Africa; Oceania
• Browse content in N2 - Financial Markets and Institutions
• N20 - General, International, or Comparative
• N23 - Europe: Pre-1913
• N24 - Europe: 1913-
• N25 - Asia including Middle East
• N26 - Latin America; Caribbean
• Browse content in N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
• N30 - General, International, or Comparative
• N32 - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
• N34 - Europe: 1913-
• Browse content in N4 - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
• N43 - Europe: Pre-1913
• Browse content in N5 - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries
• N50 - General, International, or Comparative
• N51 - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
• N52 - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
• N55 - Asia including Middle East
• N7 - Transport, Trade, Energy, Technology, and Other Services
• Browse content in N8 - Micro-Business History
• N80 - General, International, or Comparative
• Browse content in O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
• Browse content in O1 - Economic Development
• O10 - General
• O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
• O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
• O13 - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products
• O14 - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
• O15 - Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
• O16 - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
• O17 - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
• O18 - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
• O19 - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
• Browse content in O2 - Development Planning and Policy
• O20 - General
• O23 - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development
• O24 - Trade Policy; Factor Movement Policy; Foreign Exchange Policy
• O25 - Industrial Policy
• Browse content in O3 - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
• O30 - General
• O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
• O32 - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
• O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
• O34 - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
• O35 - Social Innovation
• O38 - Government Policy
• O39 - Other
• Browse content in O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
• O40 - General
• O41 - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
• O43 - Institutions and Growth
• O44 - Environment and Growth
• O47 - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
• Browse content in O5 - Economywide Country Studies
• O50 - General
• O51 - U.S.; Canada
• O52 - Europe
• O53 - Asia including Middle East
• O54 - Latin America; Caribbean
• O55 - Africa
• Browse content in P - Economic Systems
• Browse content in P0 - General
• P00 - General
• Browse content in P1 - Capitalist Systems
• P10 - General
• P11 - Planning, Coordination, and Reform
• P12 - Capitalist Enterprises
• P13 - Cooperative Enterprises
• P14 - Property Rights
• P16 - Political Economy
• P17 - Performance and Prospects
• Browse content in P2 - Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies
• P20 - General
• P21 - Planning, Coordination, and Reform
• P25 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Browse content in P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions
• P30 - General
• P31 - Socialist Enterprises and Their Transitions
• P32 - Collectives; Communes; Agriculture
• P35 - Public Economics
• P36 - Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
• P37 - Legal Institutions; Illegal Behavior
• Browse content in P4 - Other Economic Systems
• P40 - General
• P41 - Planning, Coordination, and Reform
• P46 - Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
• P48 - Political Economy; Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
• Browse content in P5 - Comparative Economic Systems
• P50 - General
• P51 - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems
• P52 - Comparative Studies of Particular Economies
• Browse content in Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics
• Browse content in Q0 - General
• Q00 - General
• Q01 - Sustainable Development
• Browse content in Q1 - Agriculture
• Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
• Q18 - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy
• Browse content in Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation
• Q30 - General
• Browse content in Q4 - Energy
• Q41 - Demand and Supply; Prices
• Q42 - Alternative Energy Sources
• Q48 - Government Policy
• Browse content in Q5 - Environmental Economics
• Q50 - General
• Q54 - Climate; Natural Disasters; Global Warming
• Q56 - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
• Q57 - Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services; Biodiversity Conservation; Bioeconomics; Industrial Ecology
• Browse content in R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics
• Browse content in R0 - General
• R00 - General
• Browse content in R1 - General Regional Economics
• R10 - General
• R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
• R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity
• R15 - Econometric and Input-Output Models; Other Models
• Browse content in R2 - Household Analysis
• R20 - General
• Browse content in R3 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location
• R30 - General
• R31 - Housing Supply and Markets
• R4 - Transportation Economics
• Browse content in R5 - Regional Government Analysis
• R51 - Finance in Urban and Rural Economies
• R58 - Regional Development Planning and Policy
• Browse content in Y - Miscellaneous Categories
• Browse content in Y1 - Data: Tables and Charts
• Y10 - Data: Tables and Charts
• Browse content in Y3 - Book Reviews (unclassified)
• Y30 - Book Reviews (unclassified)
• Browse content in Y8 - Related Disciplines
• Y80 - Related Disciplines
• Browse content in Z - Other Special Topics
• Browse content in Z0 - General
• Z00 - General
• Browse content in Z1 - Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology
• Z10 - General
• Z11 - Economics of the Arts and Literature
• Z12 - Religion
• Z13 - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification
• Z18 - Public Policy
• Browse content in Z2 - Sports Economics
• Z29 - Other
• Advance articles
• Editor's Choice
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• About Cambridge Journal of Economics
• About the Cambridge Political Economy Society
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Terms and Conditions
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

1. introduction, 2. paris purposes and the future we made, 3. the problem of unmaking, 4. conclusion: unmaking and is paris possible, conflict of interest statement, bibliography.

• < Previous

Electric vehicles: the future we made and the problem of unmaking it

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Jamie Morgan, Electric vehicles: the future we made and the problem of unmaking it, Cambridge Journal of Economics , Volume 44, Issue 4, July 2020, Pages 953–977, https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beaa022

• Permissions Icon Permissions

The uptake of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), subject to bottlenecks, seems to have reached a tipping point in the UK and this mirrors a general trend globally. BEVs are being positioned as one significant strand in the web of policy intended to translate the good intentions of Article 2 of the Conference of the Parties 21 Paris Agreement into reality. Governments and municipalities are anticipating that a widespread shift to BEVs will significantly reduce transport-related carbon emissions and, therefore, augment their nationally determined contributions to emissions reduction within the Paris Agreement. However, matters are more complicated than they may appear. There is a difference between thinking we can just keep relying on human ingenuity to solve problems after they emerge and engaging in fundamental social redesign to prevent the trajectories of harm. BEVs illustrate this. The contribution to emissions reduction per vehicle unit may be less than the public initially perceive since the important issue here is the lifecycle of the BEV and this is in no sense zero-emission. Furthermore, even though one can make the case that BEVs are a superior alternative to the fossil fuel-powered internal combustion engine, the transition to BEVs may actually facilitate exceeding the carbon budget on which the Paris Agreement ultimately rests. Whether in fact it does depends on the nature of the policy that shapes the transition. If the transition is a form of substitution that conforms to rather than shifts against current global scales and trends in private transportation, then it is highly likely that BEVs will be a successful failure. For this not to be the case, then the transition to BEVs must be coordinated with a transformation of the current scales and trends in private transportation. That is, a significant reduction in dependence on and individual ownership of powered vehicles, a radical reimagining of the nature of private conveyance and of public transportation.

According to the UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the Tesla Model 3 sold 2,685 units in December 2019, making it the 9th best-selling car in the country in that month (by new registrations; in August, a typically slow month for sales, it had been 3rd with 2,082 units sold; Lea, 2019; SMMT, 2019 ). As of early 2020, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) such as the new Hyundai Electric Kona had a two-year waiting list for delivery and the Kia e-Niro a one-year wait. The uptake of electric vehicles, subject to bottlenecks, seems to have reached a tipping point in the UK and this transcends the popularity of any given model. This possible tipping point mirrors a general trend globally (however, see later for quite what this means). At the regional, national and municipal scale, public health and environmentally informed legislation are encouraging vehicle manufacturers to invest heavily in alternative fuel vehicles and, in particular, BEVs and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), which are jointly categorised within ‘ultra-low emission vehicles’ (ULEVs). 1 According to a report by Deloitte, more than 20 major cities worldwide announced plans in 2017–18 to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2030 or sooner ( Deloitte, 2018 , p. 5). All the major manufacturers have or are launching BEV models, and so vehicles are becoming available across the status and income spectrum that has in the past determined market segmentation. According to the consultancy Frost & Sullivan (2019) , there were 207 models (143 BEVs, 64 PHEVs) available globally in 2018 compared with 165 in 2017.

In 2018, the UK government published its Road to Zero policy commitment and introduced the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 , which empowers future governments to regulate regarding the required infrastructure. Road to Zero announced an ‘expectation’ that between 50% and 70% of new cars and vans will be electric by 2030 and the intention to ‘end the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040’, with the ‘ambition’ that by 2050 almost all vehicles on the road will be ‘zero-emission’ at the point of use ( Department for Transport, 2018 ). Progress towards these goals was to be reviewed 2025. 2 However, on 4 February 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that in the run-up to Conference of the Parties (COP)26 in Glasgow (now postponed), Britain would bring forward its 2040 goal to 2035. The UK is a member of the Clean Energy Ministerial Campaign (CEM), which launched the EV30@30 initiative in 2017, and its Road to Zero policy commitments broadly align with those of many European countries. 3 Norway has longstanding generous incentives for BEVs ( Holtsmark and Skonhoft, 2014 ) and 31% of all cars sold in 2018 and just under 50% in the first half of 2019 in Norway were BEVs. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Norway is the per capita global leader in electric vehicle uptake ( IEA, 2019A ). 4

BEVs, then, are being positioned as one significant strand in the web of policy intended to translate the good intentions of Article 2 of the COP 21 Paris Agreement into reality (see Morgan, 2016 ; IEA, 2019A , pp. 11–2). Clearly, governments and municipalities are anticipating that a widespread shift to electric vehicles will significantly reduce transport-related carbon emissions and, therefore, augment their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to emissions reduction within the Paris Agreement. And, since the BEV trend is global, the impacts potentially also apply to countries whose relation to Paris is more problematic, including the USA (for Trump and his context, see Gills et al. , 2019 ). However, matters are more complicated than they may appear. Clearly, innovation and technological change are important components in our response to the challenge of climate change. However, there is a difference between thinking we can just keep relying on human ingenuity to solve problems after they emerge and engaging in fundamental social redesign to prevent the trajectories of harm. BEVs illustrate this. In what follows we explore the issues.

The aim of this paper, then, is to argue that it is a mistake to claim, assert or assume that BEVs are necessarily a panacea for the emissions problem. To do so would be an instance of what ecological economists refer to as ‘technocentrism’, as though simply substituting BEVs for existing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles was sufficient. The literature on this is, of course, vast, if one consults specialist journals or recent monographs (e.g. Chapman, 2007 ; Bailey and Wilson, 2009 ; Williamson et al. , 2018 ), but remains relatively under-explored in general political economy circles at a time of ‘Climate Emergency’, and so warrants discussion in introductory and indicative fashion, setting out, however incompletely, the range of issues at stake. To be clear, the very fact that there is a range is itself important. BEVs are technology, technologies have social contexts and social contexts include systemic features and related attitudes and behaviours. Technocentrism distracts from appropriate recognition of this. At its worse, technocentrism fails to address and so works to reproduce a counter-productive ecological modernisation: the technological focus facilitates socio-economic trends, which are part of the broader problem rather than solutions to it. In the case of BEVs, key areas to consider and points to make include:

Transport is now one of, if not, the major source of carbon emissions in the UK and in many other countries. Transport emissions stubbornly resist reduction. The UK, like many other countries, exhibits contradictory trends and policy claims regarding future carbon emissions reductions. As such, it is an error to simply assume prior emissions reduction trends will necessarily continue into the future, and the new net-zero goal highlights the short time line and urgency of the problem.

Whilst BEVs are, from an emissions point of view, a superior technology to ICE vehicles, this is less than an ordinary member of the public might think. ‘Embodied emissions’, ‘energy mix’ and ‘life cycle’ analysis all matter.

There is a difference between ‘superior technology’ and ‘superior choice’, the latter must also take account of the scale of and general trend growth in vehicle ownership and use. It is this that creates a meaningful context for what substitution can be reasonably expected to achieve.

A 1:1 substitution of BEVs for ICE vehicles and general growth in the number of vehicles potentially violates the Precautionary Principle. It creates a problem that did not need to exist, e.g. since there is net growth, it involves ‘emission reductions’ within new emissions sources and this is reckless. Inter alia , a host of fallacies and other risks inherent to the socio-economy of BEVs and resource extraction/dependence also apply.

As such, it makes more sense to resist rather than facilitate techno-political lock-in or path-dependence on private transportation and instead to coordinate any transition to BEVs with a more fundamental social redesign of public transport and transport options.

This systematic statement should be kept in mind whilst reading the following. Cumulatively, the points stated facilitate appropriate consideration of the question: What kind of solution are BEVs to what kind of problem? And we return to this in the conclusion. It is also worth bearing in mind, though it is not core to the explicit argument pursued, that an economy is a complex evolving open system and economics has not only struggled to adequately address this in general, it has particularly done so in terms of ecological issues (for relevant critique, see especially the work of Clive Spash and collected, Fullbrook and Morgan, 2019 ). 5 Since we assume limited prior knowledge on the part of the reader, we begin by briefly setting out the road to the current carbon budget problem.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was created in 1992. Article 2 of the Convention states its goal as, the ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’ ( UNFCCC, 1992 , p. 4; Gills and Morgan, 2019 ). Emissions are cumulative because emitted CO 2 can stay in the atmosphere for well over one hundred years (other greenhouse gases [GHGs] tend to be of shorter duration). Our climate future is made now. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) collates existent models to produce a forecast range and has typically used atmospheric CO 2 of 450 ppm as a level likely to trigger a 2°C average warming. This has translated into a ‘carbon budget’ restricting total cumulative emissions to the lower end of 3,000+ Gigatonnes of CO 2 (GtCO 2 ). In the last few years, climate scientists have begun to argue that positive feedback loops with adverse warming and other climatological and ecological effects may be underestimated in prior models (see Hansen et al. , 2017 ; Steffen et al. , 2018 ). Such concerns are one reason why Article 2 of the UNFCCC COP 21 Paris Agreement included a goal of at least trying to do better than the 2°C target—restricting warming to 1.5°C. This further restricts the available carbon budget. However, current Paris Agreement country commitments stated as NDCs look set to exceed the 3,000+ target in a matter of a few short years ( UNFCCC, 2015 ; Morgan, 2016 , 2017 ).

Since the industrial revolution began, we have already produced more than 2,000 GtCO 2 . Total annual emissions have increased rather than decreased over the period in which the problem has been recognised. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) publishes periodic ‘emissions gap’ reports. Its recent 10-year summary report notes that emissions grew at an average 1.6% per year from 2008 to 2017 and ‘show no signs of peaking’ ( Christensen and Olhoff, 2019 , p. 3). In 2018, the 9th Report stated that annual emissions in 2017 stood at a record of 53.5 Gigatonnes of CO 2 and equivalents (GtCO 2e ) ( UNEP, 2018 , p. xv). This compares to less than 25 GtCO 2 in 2000 and far exceeds on a global basis the level in the Kyoto Protocol benchmark year of 1990. According to the 9th Emissions Gap Report, 184 parties to the Paris Agreement had so far provided NDCs. If these NDCs are achieved, annual emissions in 2030 are projected to still be 53 GtCO 2e . However, if the current ‘implementation deficit’ continues global annual emissions could increase by about 10% to 59 GtCO 2e . This is because current emissions policy is not sufficient to offset the ‘key drivers’ of ‘economic growth and population growth’ ( Christensen and Olhoff, 2019 , p. 3). By sharp contrast, the IPCC Global Warming of 1.5 ° C report states that annual global emissions must fall by 45% from the 2017 figure by 2030 and become net zero by mid-century in order to achieve the Paris target ( IPCC, 2018 ). According to the subsequent 10th Emissions Gap Report, emissions increased yet again to 55.3 GtCO 2e in 2018 and, as a result of this adverse trend, emissions need to fall by 7.6% per year from 2020 to 2030 to achieve the IPCC goal, and this contrasts with less than 4% had reductions begun in 2010 and 15% if they are delayed until 2025 ( UNEP 2019A ). Current emissions trends mean that we will achieve an additional 500 GtCO 2 quickly and imply an average warming of 3 to 4°C over the rest of the century and into the next. We are thus on track for the ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’ that the COP process is intended to prevent ( UNFCCC, 1992 , p. 4). According to the 10th Emissions Gap Report, 78% of all emissions derive from the G-20 nations, and whilst many countries had recognised the need for net zero, only 5 countries of the G-20 had committed to this and none had yet submitted formal strategies. COP 25, December 2019, meanwhile, resulted in no overall progress other than on measurement and finance (for detailed analysis, see Newell and Taylor, 2020 ). As such, the situation is urgent and becoming more so.

Problems, moreover, have already begun to manifest ( UNEP 2019B , 2019B ; IPCC 2019A , 2019B ). Climate change does not respect borders, some countries may be more adversely affected sooner than others, but there is no reason to assume that cumulative effects will be localised. Moreover, there is no reason to assume that they will be manageable based on our current designs for life. In November 2019, several prominent systems and climate scientists published a survey essay in Nature highlighting nine critical climate tipping points that we are either imminently approaching or may have already exceeded ( Lenton et al. , 2018 ). In that same month, more than 11,250 scientists from 153 countries (the Alliance of World Scientists) signed a letter published in BioScience concurring that we now face a genuine existential ‘Climate Emergency’ and warning of ‘ecocide’ if ‘major transformations’ are not forthcoming ( Ripple et al. , 2019 ). We live in incredibly complex interconnected societies based on long supply chains and just in time delivery–few of us (including nations) are self-sufficient. Global human civilisation is extremely vulnerable and the carbon emission problem is only one of several conjoint problems created by our expansionary industrialised-consumption system. Appropriate and timely policy solutions are, therefore, imperative. Cambridge now has a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and Oxford a Future of Humanity Institute (see also Servigne and Stevens, 2015 ). This is serious research, not millenarian cultishness. The Covid-19 outbreak only serves to underscore the fragility of our systems. As Michael Marmot, Professor of epidemiology has commented, the outbreak reveals not only how political decisions can make systems more vulnerable, but also how governments can, when sufficiently motivated, take immediate and radical action (Harvey, 2020). To reiterate, however, according to both the IPCC and UNEP, emissions must fall drastically. 6

Policy design and implementation are mainly national (domestic). As such, an initial focus on the UK provides a useful point of departure to contextualise what the transition to BEVs might be expected to achieve.

The UK is a Kyoto and Paris signatory. It is a member of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The UK Climate Change Act 2008 was the world’s first long-term legally binding national framework for targeted statutory reductions in emissions. The Act required the UK to reduce its emissions by at least 80% by 2050 (below the 1990 baseline; this has been broadly in line with subsequent EU policy on the subject). 7 The Act put in place a system of five yearly ‘carbon budgets’ to keep the UK on an emissions reduction pathway to 2050. The subsequent carbon budgets have been produced with input from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an independent body created by the 2008 Act to advise the government. In November 2015, the CCC recommended a target of 57% below 1990 levels by the early 2030s (the fifth carbon budget). 8 Following the Paris Agreement’s new target of 1.5°C and the IPCC and UNEP reports late 2018, the CCC published the report Net Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming ( CCC, 2019 ). 9 The CCC report recognises that Paris creates additional responsibility for the UK to augment and accelerate its targets within the new bottom-up Paris NDC procedure. The CCC recommended an enhanced UK net-zero GHG emissions target (formally defined in terms of long-term and short-term GHGs) by 2050. This included emissions from aviation and shipping and with no use of strategies that offset or swap real emissions. In June 2019, Theresa May, then UK Prime Minister, committed to adopt the recommendation using secondary legislation (absorbed into the 2008 Act—but without the offset commitment). So, the UK is one of the few G-20 countries to, so far, provide a formal commitment on net zero, though as the UNEP notes, a commitment is not itself necessarily indicative of a realisable strategy. The CCC responded to the government announcement:

This is just the first step. The target must now be reinforced by credible UK policies, across government, inspiring a strong response from business, industry and society as a whole. The government has not yet moved formally to include international aviation and shipping within the target , but they have acknowledged that these sectors must be part of the whole economy strategy for net zero. We will assist by providing further analysis of how emissions reductions can be delivered in these sectors through domestic and international frameworks. 10

The development of policy is currently in flux during the Covid-19 lockdown and whilst Brexit reaches some kind of resolution. As noted in the Introduction section, however, May’s replacement, Boris Johnson has signalled his government’s commitment to achieving its statutory commitments. However, this has been met with some scepticism, not least because it has not been clear what new powers administrative bodies would have and over and above this many of the Cabinet are from the far right of the Conservative Party, and are on record as climate change sceptics or have a voting record of opposing environmentally focussed investment, taxes, subsidies and prohibitions (including the new Environment Secretary, George Eustice, formerly of UKIP). The policy may and hopefully will change, becoming more concrete, but it is still instructive to assess context and general trends.

The UK has one of the best records in the world on reducing emissions. However, given full context, this is not necessarily a cause for congratulation or confidence. It would be a mistake to think that emissions reduction exhibits a definite rate that can be projected from the past into the future. 11 This applies both nationally and globally. Some sources of relative reduction that are local or national have different significance on a global basis (they are partial transfers) and overall the closer one approaches net zero the more resistant or difficult it is likely to become to achieve reductions. The CCC has already begun to signal that the UK is now failing to meet its existent budgets. This follows periods of successive emissions reductions. According to the CCC, the UK has reduced its GHG emissions by approximately one-third since 1990. ‘Per capita emissions are now close to the global average at 7–8 tCO 2 e/person, having been over 50% above in 2008’ ( CCC, 2019 , p. 46). Other analyses are even more positive. According to Carbon Brief, emissions have fallen in seven consecutive years from 2013 to 2019 and by 40% compared with the 1990 benchmark. Carbon Brief claim that since 2010 the UK has the fastest rate of emissions reduction of any major economy. However, it concurs with the CCC that future likely reductions are less than the UK’s carbon budgets and that the new net-zero commitment requires: amounting to only an additional 10% reduction over the next decade to 2030. 12

Moreover, all analyses agree that the reduction has mainly been achieved by reducing coal output for use in electricity generation (switching to natural gas) and by relative deindustrialisation as the UK economy has continued to grow—manufacturing is a smaller part of a larger service-based economy. 13 And , the data are based on a production focussed accounting system. The accounting system does not include all emissions sources. It does not include those that the UK ‘imports’ based on consumption. UK consumption-based emissions per year are estimated to be about 70% greater than the production measure (for different methods, see DECC, 2015 ). 14 If consumption is included, the main estimates for falling emissions change to around a 10% reduction since 1990. Moreover, much of this has been achieved by relatively invisible historic transitions as the economy has evolved in lock-step with globalisation. That is, reductions have been ones that did not require the population to confront behaviours as they have developed. No onerous interventions have been imposed, as yet . 15 However, it does not follow that this can continue, since future reductions are likely to be more challenging. The UK cannot deindustrialise again (nor can the global economy, as is, simply deindustrialise in aggregate if final consumption remains the primary goal), and the UK has already mainly switched from coal energy production. Emissions from electricity generation may fall but it also matters what the electricity is being used to power. In any case, future emissions reductions, in general, require more effective changes in other sectors, and this necessarily seems to require everyone to question their socio-economic practices. Transport is a key issue.

As a ‘satellite’ of its National Accounts, the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes Environmental Accounts and these data are used to measure progress. Much of the data refer to the prior year or earlier. In 2017, UK GHG emissions were reported to be 566 million tonnes CO 2 e (2% less than 2016 and, as already noted about one-third of the 1990 level; ONS, 2019 ). The headline accounts break this down into four categories (for which further subdivisions are produced by various sources) and we can usefully contrast 1990 and recent data ( ONS, 2019 , p. 4):

The Environmental Accounts’ figures indicate some shifting in the relative sources of emissions over the last 30 years. As we have intimated, electricity generation and manufacturing have experienced reduced emissions, though they are far from zero; household and transport, meanwhile, have remained stubbornly high. Moreover, the accounts are also slightly misleading for the uninitiated, since transport refers to the industry and not all transport. Domestic car ownership and use are part of the household sector, and it is the continued dependence on car ownership that provides, along with heating and insulation issues, one of the major sources of the persistently high level of household emissions. The UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) provides differently organised statistics and attributes cars to its transport category and uses a subsequent residential category rather than household category. The Department’s statistical release in 2018 thus attributes a higher 140 MtCO 2 e to transport for 2016, whilst the residential category is a correspondingly lower figure of approximately 106 MtCO 2 e. The 140 MtCO 2 e is just slightly less than the equivalent figure for 1990, although transport achieved a peak of about 156 MtCO 2 e in 2005 ( DBEIS, 2018 , pp. 8–9). As of 2016, transport becomes the largest source of emissions based on DBEIS data (exceeding energy supply) whilst households become the largest in the Environmental Accounts. In any case, looking across both sets of accounts, the important point here is that since 1990 transport as a source of emissions has remained stubbornly high. Transport emissions have been rising as an industrial sector in the Environmental Accounts or relatively consistent and recently rising in its total contribution in the DBEIS data. The CCC Net Zero report draws particular attention to this. Drawing on the DBEIS data, it states that ‘Transport is now the largest source of UK GHG emissions (23% of the total) and saw emissions rise from 2013 to 2017’ ( CCC, 2019 , p. 48). More generally, the report states that despite some progress in terms of the UK carbon budgets, ‘policy success and progress in reducing emissions has been far from universal’ ( CCC, 2019 , p. 48). The report recommends ( CCC, 2019 , pp. 23–6, 34):

A fourfold increase by 2050 in low carbon (renewables) electricity

Developing energy storage (to enhance the use of renewables such as wind)

Energy-efficient buildings and a shift from gas central heating and cooking

Halting the accumulation of biodegradable waste in landfills

Developing carbon capture technology

Reducing agricultural emissions (mainly dairy but also fertiliser use)

Encouraging low or no meat diets

Land management to increase carbon retention/absorption

Rapid transition to electric vehicles and public transport

As we noted in the Introduction section, the UK Department for Transport Road To Zero document stated a goal of ending the sale of conventional diesel- and petrol-powered ICE vehicles by 2040. The CCC suggested improving on this:

Electric vehicles. By 2035 at the latest all new cars and vans should be electric (or use a low-carbon alternative such as hydrogen). If possible, an earlier switchover (e.g. 2030) would be desirable, reducing costs for motorists and improving air quality. This could help position the UK to take advantage of shifts in global markets. The Government must continue to support strengthening of the charging infrastructure, including for drivers without access to off-street parking. ( CCC, 2019 , p. 34)

The UK government’s response to these and other similar suggestions has been to bring the target date forward to 2035 and to propose that the prohibition will also apply to hybrids. However, the whole is set to go out to consultation and no detail has so far (early 2020) been forthcoming. In its 11 March 2020 Budget, the government also committed £1 billion to ‘green transport solutions’, including £500 million to support the rollout of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure, whilst extending the current grant/subsidy scheme for new electric vehicles (albeit at a reduced rate of £3000 from £3500 per new registration). It has also signalled that it may tighten the timeline for sales prohibition further to 2030. 16 As a policy, much of this is, ostensibly at least, positive, but there is a range of issues that need to be considered regarding what is being achieved. The context of transition matters and this may transcend the specifics of current policy.

3.1 BEV transition: life cycles?

The CCC is confident that a transition to electric vehicles can be a constructive contribution to achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century. However, the point is not unequivocal. The previously quoted CCC communique following the UK government’s commitment to implement Net Zero uses the phrase ‘credible UK policies, across government, inspiring a strong response from business, industry and society as a whole’, and the CCC report places an emphasis on BEVs and a transition to public transport. The relative dependence between these two matters (and see Conclusion). BEVs are potentially (almost) zero emissions in use. But they are not zero emissions in practice. Given this, then the substitution of BEVs for current carbon-powered ICEs is potentially problematic, depending on trends in ownership of and use of powered vehicles (private transportation). These points will become clearer as we proceed.

BEVs are not zero emission in context and based on the life cycle. This is for two basic reasons. First, a BEV is a powered vehicle and so the source of power can be from carbon-based energy supply sources (and this varies with the ‘energy mix’ of electricity production in different countries; IEA, 2019A , p. 8). Second, each new vehicle is a material product. Each vehicle is made of metals, plastics, rubber and so forth. Just the cabling in a car can be 60 kg of metals. All the materials must be mined and processed, or synthesised, the parts must be manufactured, transported and assembled, transported again for sale and then delivered. For example, according to the SMMT in 2016, only 12% of cars sold in the UK were built in the UK and 80% of those built in the UK were exported in that year. Some components (such as a steering column) enter and exit the UK multiple times whilst being built and modified and before final assembly. Vehicle manufacture is a global business in terms of procuring materials and a mainly regional (in the international sense) business in terms of component manufacture for assembly and final sales. Power is used throughout this process and many miles are travelled. Moreover, each vehicle must be maintained and serviced thereafter, which compounds this utilisation of resources. BEVs are a subcategory of vehicles and production locations are currently more concentrated than for vehicles in general (Tesla being the extreme). 17 In any case, producing a BEV is an economic activity and it is not environmentally costless. As Georgescu-Roegen (1971) noted long ago and ecologically minded economists continue to highlight (see Spash, 2017 ; Holt et al. , 2009 ), production cannot evade thermodynamic consequences. In terms of BEVs, the primary focus of analysis in this second sense of manufacturing as a source of contributory emissions has been the carbon emissions resulting from battery production. Based on current technology, batteries are heavy (a significant proportion of the weight of the final vehicle) and energy intensive to produce.

Comparative estimates regarding the relative life cycle emissions of BEVs with equivalent fossil fuel-powered vehicles are not new. 18 Over the last decade, the number of life cycle studies has steadily risen as the interest in and uptake of BEVs have increased. Clearly, there is great scope for variation in findings, since the energy mix for electricity supply varies by country and the assumptions applied to manufacturing can vary between studies. At the same time, the general trend over the last decade has been for the energy mix in many countries to include more renewables and for manufacturing to become more energy efficient. This is partly reflected in metrics based on emissions per $GDP, which in conjunction with relative expansion in service sectors are used to establish ‘relative decoupling’. So, given that both the energy mix of power production and the emissions derived from production can improve, then one might expect a general trend of improved emissions claims for BEVs in recent years and this seems to be the case.

For example, if we go back to 2010, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering found that technology would likely favour PHEVs over BEVs in the near future because the current energy mix and state of battery technology indicated that emissions deriving from charging were typically higher for BEVs than an average ordinary car’s fuel consumption—providing a reason to persist with ICE vehicles or, more responsibly, choose hybrids over pure electric ( Royal Academy of Engineering, 2010 ). Using data up to 2013, but drawing on the previous decade, Holtsmark and Skonhoft (2014) come to similar conclusions based on the most advanced BEV market—Norway. Focussing mainly on energy mix (with acknowledgement that a full life cycle needs to be assessed) they are deeply sceptical that BEVs are a significant net reduction in carbon emissions ( Holtsmark and Skonhoft, 2014 , pp. 161, 164). Neither the Academy nor Holtsmark and Skonhoft are merely sceptical. The overall point of the latter was that more needed to be done to accelerate the use of low or no carbon renewables for power infrastructure (a point the CCC continues to make). This, of course, has happened in many places, including the UK. That is, acceleration of the use of renewables, though it is by no means the case government can take direct credit for this in the UK (and there is also evidence on a global level that a transition to clean energy from fossil fuel forms is much slower than some data sources indicate; see Smil, 2017A , 2017B ). 19 In terms of BEVs, however, recent analyses are considerably more optimistic regarding emissions potential per BEV (e.g. Hoekstra, 2019 ; Regett et al. , 2019 ). Research by Staffell et al. (2019) at Imperial for the power corporation, Drax, provides some interesting insights and contemporary metrics.

Staffell et al. split BEVs into three categories based on conjoint battery and vehicle size: a 30–45 kWh battery car, equivalent to a mid-range or standard car; a heavier, longer-range, 90–100 kWh battery car, equivalent to a luxury or SUV model; and a 30–40 kWh battery light van. They observe that a 40-litre tank of petrol releases 90–100 kgCO 2 when burnt and the ‘embodied’ emissions represented by the manufacture of a standard lithium-ion battery are estimated at 75–125 kgCO 2 per kWh. They infer that every kWh of power embodied in the manufacture of a battery is, therefore, approximately equivalent to using a full tank of petrol. For example, a 30 kWh battery embodies thirty 40-litre petrol tank’s worth of emissions. The BEV’s are also a source of emissions based on the energy mix used to charge the battery for use. The in-use emissions for the BEV are a consequence of the energy consumed per km and this depends on the weight of car and efficiency of the battery. 20 They estimate 33 gCO 2 per km for standard BEVs, 44–54 gCO 2 for luxury and SUVs and 40 gCO 2 for vans. In all cases, this is significantly less than an equivalent fossil-fuel vehicle.

The insight that the estimates and comparisons are leading towards is that the battery embodies an ‘upfront carbon cost’ which can be gradually ‘repaid’ by the saving on emissions represented by driving a BEV compared with driving an equivalent fossil fuel-powered vehicle. That is, the environmental value of opting for BEVs increases over time. Moreover, if the energy mix is gradually becoming less carbon based, this effect is likely to improve further. Based on these considerations, Staffell et al. estimate that it may take 2–4 years to repay the embodied emissions in the battery for a standard BEV and 5 to 6 for the luxury or SUV models. Fundamentally, assuming 15 years to be typical for the on-the-road life expectancy of a vehicle, they find lifetime emissions for each BEV category are lower than equivalent fossil-fuel vehicles.

Still, the implication is that BEVs are not zero emission. Moreover, the degree to which this is so is likely to be significantly greater than a focus on the battery alone indicates. Romare and Dahlöff (2017) , assess the life-cycle of battery production (not use), and in regard of the stages of battery production find that the manufacturing stages account for about 50% of the emissions and the mining and processing stages about the same. They infer that there is significant scope for further emissions reductions as manufacturing processes improve and the Drax study seems to confirm this. However, whilst the battery may be the major component, as we have already noted, vehicle manufacture is a major process in terms of all components and in terms of distance travelled in production and distribution. It is also worth noting that the weight of batteries creates strong incentives to opt for lighter materials for other parts of the vehicle. Most current vehicles are steel based. An aluminium vehicle is lighter, but the production of aluminium is more carbon intensive than steel, so there are also further hidden trade-offs that the positive narrative for BEVs must consider. 21

The general point worth emphasising here is that there is basic uncertainty built into the complex evolving process of transition and change. There is a basic ontology issue here familiar in economic critique: there is no simple way to model the changes with confidence, and in broader context confidence in modelling may itself be a problem here when translated into policy, since it invites complacency. 22 That said, the likely direction of travel is towards further improvements in the energy mix and improvements in battery technology. Both these may be incremental or transformational depending on future technologies (fusion for energy mix and organics and solid-state technologies for batteries perhaps). 23 But one must still consider time frames and ultimate context. 24 The context is a carbon budget and the need for radical reductions in emissions by 2030 and net zero by mid-century. Consider: if just the battery of a car requires four years to be paid back then there is no significant difference in the contribution to emissions from the vehicle into the mid 2020s. For larger vehicles, this becomes the later 2020s, and each year of delay in transition for the individual owner is another year closer to 2030. Since transport is (stubbornly) the major source of emissions in the UK and a major source in the world, this is not irrelevant. BEVs can readily be a successful failure in Paris terms. This brings us to the issue of trends in vehicle ownership and substitutions. This also matters for what we mean by transition.

3.2 Substitutions and transformations: successful failure?

There are many ways to consider the problem of transition. Consider the ‘Precautionary Principle’. This is Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration: ‘In order to protect the environment, the precautionary principle shall be widely applied by the States [UN members] according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation’ (UNCED). Assuming we can simply depend on unrealised technology potentially violates the Principle. Why is this so? If BEVs are a source of net emissions, then each new vehicle continues to contribute to overall emissions. The current number of vehicles to be replaced, therefore, is a serious consideration, as is any growth trend. Here, social redesign rather than merely adopting new technology is surely more in accordance with the Precautionary Principle. BEVs may be sources of lower emissions than fossil fuel-powered vehicles, but it does not follow that we are constrained to choose between just these two options or that it makes sense to do so in aggregate, given the objective of radical and rapid reduction in emissions. If time is short and numbers of vehicles are large and growing then the implication is that substitution of BEVs should (from a precautionary point of view) occur in a context that is oppositional to this growing trend. That is, the goal should be one of reducing private car ownership and use, and increasing the availability, pervasiveness and use of public transport (and alternatives to private vehicle ownership). This is an issue compounded by the finding that there is an upfront carbon cost from BEVs. Some consideration of current vehicle numbers and trends in the UK and globally serve to reinforce the point.

The UK Department for Transport publishes annual statistics for vehicle licensing. According to the 2019 statistical release for 2018 data, there were 38.2 million licensed vehicles in Britain and 39.4 million including Northern Ireland ( Department for Transport, 2019 ). Vehicles are categorised into cars, light goods vehicles, heavy goods vehicles, motorcycles and buses and coaches. Cars comprised 31.5 million of the total (82%) and the total represented a 1.2% increase in the year 2017. There is, furthermore, a long-term year-on-year trend increase in vehicles since World War II and over the last 20 years that growth (the net change as new vehicles are licensed and old vehicles taken off the road) has averaged 630,000 vehicles per year ( Department for Transport, 2019 , p. 7). This is partly accounted for not only by population growth, and business growth, but also by an increase in the number of vehicles per household. According to the statistical release, 2.9 million new vehicles were registered in 2018, and though this was about 5% fewer than 2017 the figure remained broadly consistent with long-term trends in numbers and still represented growth (contributing to the stated 1.2% increase). 25 Of the total new registrations in 2018, 2.3 million were cars and 360,000 were light goods vehicles. Around 2 million has been typical for cars.

The point to take from these metrics is that numbers are large and context matters. Cars represent 31.5 million emission sources and there are 39.4 million vehicles in the UK. Replacing these 1:1 reproduces an emissions problem. Replacing them in conjunction with an ownership growth trend exacerbates the emissions problem that then has to be resolved. If around 2 million new cars are registered per year then the point at which the BEVs amongst these new registrations can be assumed to begin payback for embodied emissions prior to the point at which they become net sources of reduced (and not zero ) emissions is staggered over future years based on the rate of switching. There are then also net new vehicles. Given there are 31.5 million cars to be replaced over time (plus net growth), there is a high likelihood of significant transport emissions up to and beyond 2030. The problem, of course, is implicit in the Department for Transport policy commitment to end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035 and ensure all vehicles are zero-emission in use by 2050. Knowingly committing to this ingrained emission problem, given we have already recognised the urgency and challenge of the carbon budget and the ‘stubbornness’ of transport emissions, is not prudent, if alternatives exist . It is producing a problem that need not exist purely because enabling car ownership and use is a line of least resistance in policy terms (it requires the least change in behaviour and thus provokes limited opposition). It is also worth noting that the UK, like most countries, has an ‘integrated’ transport policy. However, the phrasing disguises the relative levels of investment between different modes of transport. Austerity politics may have resulted in declining road quality in the UK but, in general terms, the UK is still committed to heavy investment in and expansion of its road system. 26 This infrastructure investment not only seems ‘economically rational’, but it is also a matter of relative emphasis and ‘lock-in’. The future policy is predicated on the dominance of road use and thus vehicle use.

The crux of the matter here is how we view political expedience. Surely this hinges on the consequences of policy failure. That is, the failure to implement an effective policy given the genuine problem expressed in the goal of 1.5 or 2°C. ‘Alternatives’ may seem unrealistic, but this is a matter of will and policy—of rational social design rather than impossibility. The IPCC and other sources suggest that achieving the Paris goals requires mobilisation of a kind not previously seen outside of wartime. Policy can pivot on this quite quickly, even if perhaps this can seem unlikely in 2020. Climate events may make this necessary and popular pressure and opinion may be transformed. This is currently uncertain. Positions on this may yet move quite quickly.

Lock-in also implies an underlying sociological issue. This is important to consider regarding simply opting for substitution without greater emphasis on reduction. Even if substitution occurs smoothly, it places greater pressure on areas of reduction over which we have less control as societies and involves an orientation that has further potential policy consequences that cannot be readily quantified and which increase the overall uncertainty regarding NDCs. As any modern historian, urban geographer or sociologist will attest, car ownership has been imbricate with the development and design—the configuration—of modern societies, and it has been deeply integrated into identity. Cars are social technologies and philosophers also have much to say about this sociality in general (e.g. Faulkner and Runde, 2013 ; Lawson, 2017 ). Cars are more than merely convenient; they are sources of autonomy and status (e.g. John Urry explored the sociology of ‘automobility’; see, Dennis and Urry, 2009 ). As such, the more that environmental and transport policy validate the car, then the more that the car is normalised through socialisation for the citizen, perhaps leading to citizens being more prepared to countenance locked-in harms (congestion, etc.) prior to change, in turn, making it less likely (sub)urban spaces are redesigned in ways predicated on the absence of (or severe limits to) private transport. The trend in many countries over the car era has been that building roads leads to more car use, which leads to congestion, which leads to more roads (especially in concentrated zones around [sub]urban spaces).

According to the UK Ordnance Survey, Britain has increased its total road surface by 132 square miles over the decade since 2010 (a 9% increase). According to the UK Department for Transport, vehicle traffic increased by 0.8% in 2019 (September to September) to 330.1 billion miles travelled and car travel, as a subset, increased to 258 billion miles (a 1.5% increase). 27 The 11 March 2020 Budget seems to confirm the trend. Whilst it commits around £1 billion to ‘green transport solutions’, this is in the context of a £27 billion announced investment in roads, including upgrading and a proposed 4,000 miles of new road. As the Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, noted there is a basic disconnect here, since this seems set to increase the UK’s dependence on private transport, when it makes more sense to begin to curtail that dependence, given how significant the UK’s transport emissions are. 28 So, within the various tensions in policy, there seems to be a tendency to facilitate techno-political lock-in or path-dependence on private transportation. As Mattioli et al. (2020) argue, the multiple strands of policy and practice that maintain car dependence contribute to ‘carbon lock-in’. The systemic consequences matter both for the perpetuation of fossil fuel vehicle use in the short term and, given they are not net zero for emissions, powered vehicles in the longer term. Not only does this matter in the UK, but it also matters globally. All the issues stated are reproduced globally. Moreover, in some ways, they are compounded for countries where widespread car ownership is relatively new.

3.3 The fallacy of composition, problems that need not exist and resource risk

Estimates vary for the global total number of vehicles. According to Wards Intelligence, the global total was 1.32 billion in 2016 ( Petit, 2017 ). Extrapolated estimations imply that the total likely increased to more than 1.5 billion in 2019. In 1976, the figure was 342 million and in 1996, 670 million, so the trend implies an approximate doubling every 20 years, which if it continued would imply a figure approaching 3 billion by end of the 2030s. Clearly, it is problematic to simply extrapolate a linear trend, but it is not unreasonable to assume a general trend of growth. Observed experience is that many ‘developed’ country middle-class households have accommodated more than one car per household. This is classically the case in the USA. In 2017, the USA, with a population of 325.7 million in that year, reported a total of 272.5 million registered vehicles compared with 193 million in 1990 ( Statista, 2019A ). In any case, the world population is still growing, incomes are growing and many countries are far from a position of one car per household. China with a population of 1.3 billion overtook the USA in the total number of registered vehicles around 2016 to 2017, with 300.3 million registered vehicles in March of 2017 (Zheng, 2017). Growth is rapid and the China Traffic Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security reported a total of 325 million registered vehicles, December 2018, an increase of 15.56 million in the year ( China Daily , 2018 ). The People’s Republic is now the world’s largest car market and the number of registered cars increased to 240 million in 2018 ( Statista, 2019B ). India too has rapidly growing car ownership and on a lesser scale this is replicated across the developing world.

For our purposes, two well-known concepts and a further resource dependence risk seem to apply here. First, there is patently a ‘fallacy of composition’ issue. That is, the assumption that many can do what few previously did without changing the conditions or producing different (adverse) consequences than arose when only a few adopted that behaviour or activity. Those consequences are climatological and ecological. It remains the case that we are socialised to desire and appreciate cars and it remains a fact that private transport can be extremely convenient. It can also, given the commentary above, appear hypocritical to be suggesting shifting to a far greater reliance on public transport, since this implicitly involves denying to developing country citizens a facet of modernity enjoyed previously by developed country citizens. But this is a distraction from the underlying collective interest in reduced car ownership and use. It denies the basic premise that a Precautionary Principle applies to all and that societies that are not yet car dependent have the opportunity to avoid a problem, rather than have to manage it via either moving straight to private transport BEVs or a transition from fossil fuel-powered ICEs to BEVs with all that entails in terms of ingrained emissions. Policy may be mainly domestic, but climate change is global and aggregate effects do not respect borders, which brings us to a second concept or risk that may be exacerbated.

Second, a ‘quasi-Jevons’ effect’ may apply. Growth of vehicle use is a problem of resource use and this is a thermodynamic and emissions problem. However, it is, as we have noted, also the case that battery technology and energy mix for BEVs are improving. So, this may involve significant declines in relative cost, which in turn may create a tendency for BEV ownership to accelerate which could exacerbate net growth in numbers of vehicles. Net growth could ironically be to the detriment of emissions savings. Whether this is so, depends, in part, on what kind of overall transport policy countries adopt and whether consumers, corporations and markets are allowed to be the arbiter of which area of transport dominates. It also depends, in part, on what materials are required for future batteries. Current technology implies massive increases in costs based on securing sources of lithium and cobalt as battery demand rises. So even if a Jevons’ effect is avoided, a different issue may apply. Resource procurement is a Precautionary Principle issue since effective BEVs at the kind of numbers necessary to substitute for all vehicles seem to require technological transformation—without it, multiple problems apply whilst emissions remain ingrained.

For example, when the UK CCC announced its 2035 recommendation to accelerate the BEV transition, members of the Security of Supply of Mineral Resources (SSMR) project wrote a research note to the CCC (Webster, 2019). They pointed out that the current total European demand for cobalt is 19,800 tonnes and that producing the batteries to replace 2.3 million cars in the UK (in accordance with contemporary statistics for new registrations) would require 15,600 tonnes. The UK would also need 20,000 tonnes of lithium, which is 45% of the current total European demand. If we replicate this ramping up of demand across Europe and the globe for vehicles, recognising that there are other growing demands for the minerals and metals (including batteries for other purposes) then it seems unlikely that supply can respond, unless dependence on lithium and cobalt (and other constituents) falls sharply as technology changes. Clearly, the problem is also contingent on the uptake of BEVs. Over recent years, there has, in fact, been an oversupply of the main materials for battery production because several of the main mining corporations anticipated that battery demand would take off faster than it actually has. For example, global prices of cobalt, nickel and lithium carbonate have increased significantly over the last decade but have fallen in 2018 to the end of 2019. However, industry analysis indicates that current annual global production is the equivalent of about 10 million standard BEVs based on current technology, and as the previous statistics on global vehicle numbers (see also next section) indicate, this is far less than transition via substitution would seem to require in the next decade. 29

Shortages and price rises, therefore, are if not inevitable, at least likely. Currently, about 60% of the cost of a BEV is the battery and 80% of that 60% (about 50% of the vehicle) is the cost of battery materials. It is, therefore, important to achieve secure supply and stable costs. The further context here is the issue of UK domestic battery capacity. In 2013, the government created the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) with a 10 year £500 million investment commitment matched by industry. The APC’s remit is to address supply chain issues for electric vehicles. Not unexpectedly, the APC quickly identified lack of domestic battery production capacity as a major impediment. In response in 2016 another government initiative, Innovate UK set up the Faraday Battery Challenge to encourage domestic capacity and innovation. The Battery Industrialisation Centre was then set up in Coventry, to attract manufacturers in the supply chain for BEVs to locate there, focussed around a centre of research excellence. However, the APC has no control over the global supply and prices of battery materials, the investment and location decisions of battery manufacturers or the necessary infrastructure for BEVs to be a feasible technology. 30 For example, according to the APC, if domestic BEV demand were 500,00 per year by 2025, then the UK would need three ‘gigafactories’. Battery manufacture is currently dominated by LG Chem and Samsung in South Korea, CATL in China and Panasonic in Japan. None of these have current plans to build a gigafactory in the UK. In any case, there is a further problem here which raises a whole set of environmental and ethical issues explored in ecological circles under the general heading ‘extractivism’ (see, e.g. Dunlap, 2019 ). As time goes by, the UK and the world may become dependent on high price supplies of materials drawn from unstable or hostile regimes (the Democratic Republic of Congo, etc.), which is a risk in many ways (and a likely source of Dutch disease—the ‘resource curse’—for unstable regimes). So, not placing a relative emphasis on substituting BEVs for ICEs and not endorsing the current vehicle growth trend (which is different as a suggestion than rejecting BEVs entirely) avoid multiple problems and risks.

It is also worth noting that simple market decisions can have a further collective adverse consequence based on individual consumer preference and reasoning, which may also affect BEVs in the short term. Many current BEVs have smaller or low efficiency batteries and thus short ranges. These favour urban use for short journeys, but most people own cars with a view also to range further afield. As such, it seems likely that until the technology is all long range (and the charging infrastructure is pervasive) many consumers, if the choice exists and income allows, will own BEVs as an additional vehicle, not a replacement vehicle. 31 This may be a short-term issue, given the regulatory changes focussed from 2030 to 2040 in many countries. But, again, from a Paris point of view, taking the IPCC 1.5°C and UNEP Emissions Gap reports into consideration, this matters. This brings us to a final issue. What is the actual take-up of BEVs (and ULEVs)? How rapid is the transition? In the Introduction section, I suggested that the UK had reached a tipping point and that this mirrored a general trend globally. This, however, needs context.

3.4 How many electric vehicles?

The data emerging in recent years and stated in the Introduction section are a step-change, but as a possible tipping point it begins from a low base and BEVs (the least emitting of the low emission vehicles) are a subset, albeit a rapidly expanding one, of ULEVs. According to the UK Department for Transport statistical release for 2018, there were 200,000 ULEVs registered in total, of which 63,992 ULEVs were newly registered in that year ( Department for Transport, 2019 , p. 4). 93% of the total registrations were cars and the total constitutes a 39% increase on the year 2017 total and a 20% increase in the rate of registration—there were just 9,500 ULEVs at the beginning of 2010 (so, about 20 times greater in a decade). However, the 2018 data mean that ULEVs accounted for just 0.5% of all licensed vehicles and were still only 2.1% of all new registrations in that year. Preliminary data available early 2020 indicate continued growth with almost 38,000 new BEV registrations in 2019, a 144% year-on-year increase. As a recent UK House of Commons Briefing Paper notes, however, the government prefers to emphasise the percentage changes in take-up rather than the percentages of the absolute numbers or the absolute numbers themselves ( Hirst, 2019 ). The International Energy Agency (IEA) places the UK in its leading countries list by ULEV and BEV market share (measured by the percentage of total annual registration): Norway dominates, followed by Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands and then a significant drop-off to a trailing group including China, the USA, Germany, the UK, Japan, France, Canada and South Korea. However, the market share in this trailing group is less than 5% in every case (see appended Figure 1 ). China, given its size (and because of the urgency of its urban air quality problems and its capacity for authoritarian implementation), dominates the raw numbers in terms of total ULEVs and BEVs. All this notwithstanding, the IEA confirms the general point that up-take is accelerating, but the base is low and so achieving total ULEV or BEV coverage is some way off:

The global electric car fleet exceeded 5.1 million in 2018, up by 2 million since 2017, almost doubling the unprecedented amount of new registrations in 2017. The People’s Republic of China… remained the world’s largest electric car market with nearly 1.1 million electric cars sold in 2018 and, with 2.3 million units, it accounted for almost half of the global electric car stock. Europe followed with 1.2 million electric cars and the United States with 1.1 million on the road by the end of 2018 and market growth of 385000 and 361000 electric cars from the previous year. Norway remained the global leader in terms of electric car market share at 46% of its new electric car sales in 2018, more than double the second-largest market share in Iceland at 17% and six-times higher than the third-highest Sweden at 8%. In 2018, electric buses continued to witness dynamic developments, with more than 460000 vehicles on the world’s road, almost 100000 more than in 2017…In freight transport, electric vehicles (EVs) were mostly deployed as light-commercial vehicles (LCVs), which reached 250000 units in 2018, up 80000 from 2017. Medium truck sales were in the range of 1000–2000 in 2018, mostly concentrated in China. ( IEA, 2019A , p. 9)

Over the next few years, it seems likely we will see rapid changes in these metrics. There is a great deal of discussion in policy analysis regarding bottlenecks and impediments and these, of course, are also important (consumer uncertainty, ‘range anxiety’, availability of sufficient infrastructure for charging and so on). 32 However, as everything argued so far indicates regarding transition and trends, underlying the whole is the conditionality of success and the potential for failure, involving avoidable ingrained emission and risks. There is a basic difference between a superior technology and a superior choice since the latter is a socio-economic matter of context: of rates of change, scales and substitutions. Ultimately, this creates deep concerns in terms of achieving the Paris goals. The IEA explores two forecast scenarios for the uptake of ULEVs. Both involve a projection of annual ULEV sales and total stock to 2030 ( IEA, 2019A ). First a ‘New Policies’ Scenario. This takes the current policy commitments of individual countries and extrapolates. By 2030, the scenario projects global ULEV sales at 23 million in that year and a total stock of 130 million. This is considerably less than 30% of all vehicles now and in 2030. Second, the EV30@30 Scenario. This assumes an accelerated commitment that adopts the @30 goals (notably 30% annual sales share for BEVs by 2030; IEA, 2019A , pp. 29–30). By 2030, the scenario projects global ULEV sales at 43 million in that year and a total stock of 250 million. Again, this is less than 30% of all vehicles now and in 2030.

The figures, of course, are highly conditional, but the point is clear, even the best-case scenario currently being anticipated has ULEVs and BEVs as a minority of all vehicles in 2030—and 2030 is a key year for achieving Paris, according to the October 2018 IPCC 1.5°C report. Moreover, it is notable that the projections assume continuous growth in the number of vehicles (and so continuous growth in ICE vehicles) and the major areas of numerical growth in BEVs continue to be China, so some significant part of the anticipated total will be new ingrained emissions that arguably did not need to exist. 33 Again, this is highly conditional but it at least creates questions regarding what is being ‘saved’ when the IEA claims that the New Policies Scenario results in 2.5 million barrels a day less demand for oil in 2030 and the EV30@30 Scenario 4.3 million barrels a day ( IEA, 2019A , p. 7). 34 Less of more is not a saving in an objective sense, if this is a preventable future, and it is not a rational way to set about ‘saving’ the planet. It remains the case, of course, that this is better than nothing, but it is deeply questionable whether in policy terms any of this is the ‘best that can be done’. As stated in the Introduction section, technocentrism distracts from appropriate recognition of this. At its worse, technocentrism fails to address and so works to reproduce a counter-productive ecological modernisation: the technological focus facilitates socio-economic trends, which are part of the broader problem rather than solutions to it. The important inference is that there are multiple reasons to think that greater emphasis on social redesign and less private transport avoids successful failure and is more in accordance with the Precautionary Principle.

I ended the introduction to this essay by stating that we would be exploring the foregrounding question: What kind of solution are BEVs to what kind of problem? It should be clearer now what was meant by this. Ultimately, the balance between private and public transport matters if the Paris goals are to be achieved. Equally clearly, this is not news to the UK CCC or to any serious analyst of electric vehicles and the transport issue for our climatological and ecological future (again, e.g. Chapman, 2007 ; Bailey and Wilson, 2009 ; Williamson et al. , 2018 ; Mattioli et al. , 2020 ). At the same time, the context and issues are not widely understood and the problems are often understated, at least in so far as, discursively, most weight is placed on stating progress in achieving a transition to ULEVs and BEVs. This is technocentric. Despite its general concerns and careful critical stance, the CCC is also partly guilty of this. For example, Ewa Kmietowicz, Transport Team Leader of the CCC Secretariat, refers to the UK Road to Zero strategy as a ‘lost opportunity’, and the CCC identifies a number of shortfalls in the strategy. 35 However, the general thrust of the CCC position is to focus on a rapid transition to BEVs and to overcoming bottlenecks. 36 Broader feasibility is subsumed under general assumptions about continued economic expansion and expansion of the transport system. So, there is more of a situation of complementarity (with caveats) between public and private transport, and the whole becomes an exercise in types of investment within expansionary trends, rather than a more radical recognition of the fundamental problems that we ought to think about avoiding. It is also worth noting that many of the major advocates of BEVs are industry organisations. The UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, for example, are not unconcerned but they are not impartial either; they have a vested interest in the vehicle industry and its growth. For industry, ULEVs and BEVs are an opportunity before they are a solution to a problem. There are, however, recognitions that a rethink is required. These range from direct activism, such as ‘Rocks in the Gearbox’ (along the lines of Extinction Rebellion), to analysis from establishment think tanks, such as the World Economic Forum 37 , and statements from government oversight committees. For example, the UK Commons Science and Technology Committee (CSTC) not only endorses the CCC 2035 accelerated BEV target but also states more explicitly:

In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation. The Government should not aim to achieve emissions reductions simply by replacing existing vehicles with lower-emissions versions. Alongside the Government’s existing targets and policies, it must develop a strategy to stimulate a low-emissions transport system, with the metrics and targets to match. This should aim to reduce the number of vehicles required, for example by: promoting and improving public transport; reducing its cost relative to private transport; encouraging vehicle usership in place of ownership; and encouraging and supporting increased levels of walking and cycling. ( CSTC, 2019 )

This, as Caroline Lucas suggests, speaks to the need to coordinate public and private transport policy more effectively and clearly, and there is a need for broader informed debate here. In political ecological circles, for example, there is a growing critique of the tensions encapsulated in the concept of an ‘environmental state’ (see Koch, 2019 ). That is the coordination and coherence of environmental imperatives with other policy concerns. State-rescaling and degrowth and postgrowth work highlight the profound problems that are now starting to emerge as states come to terms with the basic mechanisms that have been built into our economies and societies (see also Newell and Mulvaney, 2013 ; Newell, 2019 ). 38 New thinking is required and this extends to the social ontology and theory we use to conceptualise economies (see Spash and Ryan, 2012 ; Lawson, 2012 , 2019 ) and political formations (see Bacevic, 2019 ; Patomäki, 2019. Covid-19 does not change this ( Gills, 2020 ).

In transport terms, there are many specific issues to consider. Some solutions are simple but overlooked because we are always thinking in terms of sophisticated innovations and inventions. However, we do not need to conform to the logics of ‘technological fixes’, that we somehow think will enable the impossible, to perhaps see some scope in ‘fourth industrial revolution’ transformations ( Center for Global Policy Solutions, 2017 ; Morgan, 2019B ). For example, public transport may also extend to a future where no individual owns a range extensive powered vehicle (perhaps just local scooters for the young and mobility scooters for the infirm) and instead a system operates of autonomous fleet vehicles that are coordinated by artificial intelligence with logistics implemented through Smartphone calendar access booking systems—and coordination functions could maximise sharing, where vehicles could also be (given no drivers are involved) adaptable connective pods that chain together to minimise congestion and energy use. This seems like science fiction now, and perhaps a little ridiculous, but a few years ago so did the Smartphone. And the technology already exists in infancy. Such a system could be either state-funded and run or private partnership and franchise, but in either case, it radically redraws the transport environment whilst working in conformity with the geography of living spaces we have already developed. Will is what is required and if the outcome of COP24 ( UNFCCC, 2018 ) and COP25 ( Newell and Taylor, 2020 ) with limited progress towards the Paris goals persists, then it seems likely that emissions will accumulate rapidly in the near future and the likelihood of a serious climate event with socio-economic consequences rises. At that stage, more invasive statutory and regulatory intervention may start to occur as the carbon budget becomes a more urgent target. Prohibitions, transport rationing and various other possibilities may then be on the agenda if we are to unmake the future we are currently writing and, to mix metaphors, avoid a road to nowhere.

None declared

Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for extensive and useful comment—particularly regarding the systematic statement of issues in the Introduction section and for additional useful references. Jamie Morganis Professor of Economic Sociology at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He coedits the Real-World Economics Review with Edward Fullbrook. RWER is the world’s largest subscription based open access economics journal. He has published widely in the fields of economics, political economy, philosophy, sociology, and international politics. His recent books include: Modern Monetary Theory and its Critics (ed. with E. Fullbrook, WEA Books, 2020), Economics and the ecosystem (ed. with E. Fullbrook, WEA Books, 2019); Brexit and the political economy of fragmentation: Things fall apart (ed. with H. Patomäki, Routledge, 2018); Realist responses to post-human society (ed. with I. Al-Amoudi, Routledge, 2018); Trumponomics: Causes and consequences (ed. with E. Fullbrook, College Publications, 2017); What is neoclassical economics? (ed., Routledge, 2015); and Piketty’s capital in the twenty-first century (ed. with E. Fullbrook, College Publications, 2014).

Bacevic , J . 2019 . Knowing neoliberalism , Social Epistemology , vol. 33 , no. 4 , 380 – 92

Google Scholar

Bailey , I. and Wilson , G . 2009 . Theorising transitional pathways in response to climate change: technocentrism, ecocentrism, and the carbon economy , Environment and Planning A , vol. 41 , no. 10 , 2324 – 41

CCC. 2019 . Net Zero: The UK’s Contribution to Stopping Global Warming , London , Author

Google Preview

Center for Global Policy Solutions. 2017 . Stick Shift: Autonomous Vehicles, Driving Jobs and the Future of Work , Washington DC , Author

Chapman , L . 2007 . Transportation and climate change: a review , Journal of Transport Geography , vol. 15 , no. 5 , 354 – 67

China Daily. 2018, December 1 . China has 325 million motor vehicles , China Daily

Christensen , J. and Olhoff , A . 2019 . Lessons from a Decade of Emissions Gap Assessments , Nairobi , UNEP

CSTC. 2019 . Clean Growth: Technologies for Meeting the UK’s Emissions Reduction Targets , London , Author

DBEIS. 2018 . Annex: 1990–2016 UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Final Figures by end User , London , Author

DECC. 2015 . Different Approaches to Reporting UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions , London , Author

Deloitte. 2018 . Battery Electric Vehicles. New market. New entrants. New challenges , London , Author

Dennis , K. and Urry , J . 2009 . After the Car , Cambridge , Polity

Department for Transport. 2018 . The Road to Zero: Next Steps Towards Cleaner Road Transport and Delivering our Industrial Strategy , London , Author

Department for Transport. 2019 . Vehicle Licensing Statistics: Annual 2018 , London , Author

Dunlap , A . 2019 . Wind, coal and copper: the politics of land grabbing, counterinsurgency and the social engineering of extraction , Globalizations vol. 17 , no. 4 , 661 – 82

Environmental Audit Committee. 2016 . Sustainability in the Department of Transport [Third Report of Sessions 2016–17], London , House of Commons

Faraday Institution. 2019 . UK Electric Vehicle and Battery Production Potential to 2040 , London , Author

Faulkner , P. and Runde , J . 2013 . Technological objects, social positions and the transformational model of social activity , MIS Quarterly , vol. 37 , no. 3 , 803 – 18

Frost & Sullivan. 2019 . Global Electric Vehicle Market Outlook, 2019 , Author , London

Fullbrook , E. and Morgan , J. (eds.). 2019 . Economics and the Ecosystem , London , World Economic Association Books

Georgescu-Roegen , N . 1971 . The Entropy Law and the Economic Process , Cambridge and London , Harvard University Press

Gills , B . 2020 . Deep Restoration: from the Great Implosion to the Great Awakening , Globalizations , vol. 17 , no. 4 , 577 – 9

Gills , B. and Morgan , J . 2019 . Global Climate Emergency: after COP24, climate science, urgency, and the threat to humanity , Globalizations

Gills , B. , Morgan , J. and Patomäki , H . 2019 . President Trump as status dysfunction , Organization , vol. 26 , no. 2 , 291 – 301

Hansen , J. et al.  2017 . Young people’s burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions , Earth System Dynamics , vol. 8 , 577 – 616

Harvey , F . 2020, March 28 . Tackle climate crisis and poverty with zeal of Covid-19 fight scientists urge , The Guardian

Hirst , D . 2019 . ‘ Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure’ , Briefing Paper no. CBP07480, London , House of Commons Library

Hoekstra , A . 2019 . The underestimated potential of battery electric vehicles to reduce emissions , Joule , vol. 3 , no. 6 , 1412 – 4

Holt , R. , Pressman , S. and Spash , C. (eds.). 2009 . Post Keynesian and Ecological Economics , Cheltenham , Edward Elgar

Holtsmark , B. and Skonhoft , A . 2014 . The Norwegian support and subsidy policy for electric cars. Should it be adopted by other countries? Environmental Science & Policy , vol. 42 , 160 – 8

IEA. 2019A . Global EV Outlook 2019: Scaling up the Transition to Electric Mobility , Paris , Author

IEA. 2019B . World Energy Outlook , Paris , Author

IPCC. 2018 . Global Warming of 1.50C: Summary for Policymakers , Geneva , Author

IPCC. 2019A . IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation Sustainable Land Management Food Security and Greenhouse Gas fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems , Geneva , Author

IPCC. 2019B . The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate , Geneva , Author

Koch , M . 2019 . The state in the transformation to a sustainable postgrowth economy , Environmental Politics , vol. 29 , no. 1 , 115 – 33

Lawson , C . 2012 . Aviation lock-in and emissions trading , Cambridge Journal of Economics , vol. 36 , no. 5 , 1221 – 43

Lawson , C . 2017 . Technology and Isolation , Cambridge , Cambridge University Press

Lawson , T . 2019 . The Nature of Social Reality: Issues in Social Ontology , London , Routledge

Lea , R . 2019, September 6 . Tesla Model 3 enters sales chart at No3 , The Times

Lenton , T. , Rockstrom , J. , Gaffney , O. , Rahmstorf , S. , Richardson , K. , Steffen , W. and Schellnuber , H . 2018 . Climate tipping points too risky to bet against , Nature , vol. 575 , 592 – 5

Manzetti , S. and Mariasiu , F . 2015 . Electric vehicle battery technologies: from present state to future systems , Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews , vol. 51 , 1004 – 12

Mattioli , G. , Roberts , C. , Steinberger , J. , and Brown , A . 2020 . The political economy of car dependence: a systems of provision approach , Energy Research & Social Science , vol. 66 , 1 – 18

Morgan , J . 2016 . Paris COP21: power that speaks the truth? Globalizations , vol. 13 , no. 6 , 943 – 51

Morgan , J . 2017 . Piketty and the growth dilemma revisited in the context of ecological economics , Ecological Economics , vol. 136 , 169 – 77

Morgan , J . 2019A . Intervention, policy and responsibility: economics as over-engineered expertise?, pp. 145 – 63 in Dolfsma , W. and Negru , I. (eds.), 2019 The Ethical Formation of Economists , London , Routledge

Morgan , J . 2019B . Will we work in twenty-first century capitalism? A critique of the fourth industrial revolution literature , Economy and Society , vol. 48 , no. 3 , 371 – 98

Morgan , J. and Patomäki , H . 2017 . Contrast explanation in economics: its context, meaning, and potential , Cambridge Journal of Economics , vol. 41 , no. 5 , 1391 – 418

Nasir , A. and Morgan , J . 2018 . The unit root problem: affinities between ergodicity and stationarity, its practical contradictions for central bank policy, and some consideration of alternatives , Journal of Post Keynesian Economics , vol. 41 , no. 3 , 339 – 63

National Audit Office. 2019 . Department of Transport Sustainability Update , London , Author

Newell , P . 2019 . Transformismo or transformation? The global political economy of energy transitions , Review of International Political Economy , vol. 26 , no. 1 , 25 – 48

Newell , P. and Mulvaney , D . 2013 . The political economy of the “just transition” , The Geographical Journal , vol. 179 , no. 2 , 132 – 40

Newell , P. and Taylor , O . 2020 . Fiddling while the planet burns? COP 25 in perspective , Globalizations , vol. 17 , no. 4 , 580 – 92

ONS. 2019 . UK Environmental Accounts: 2019 , London , Author

Patomäki , H . 2019, July 9 . ‘The Climate Movement? What’s Next?’, available at https://patomaki.fi/en/2019/07/the-climate-movement-whats-next/

Petit , S . 2017 . World vehicle population rose 2.6% in 2016 , Ward Intelligence

Regett , A. , Mauch , W. and Wagner , U . 2019 . Carbon Footprint of Electric Vehicles – A Plea for More Objectivity , available at https://www.ffe.de/attachments/article/856/Carbon_footprint_EV_FfE.pdf

Ripple , W. , Wolf , C. , Newsome , T. , Barnbard , P. , Moomaw , W. and 11,258 signatories. 2019 . World Scientists’ warning of a climate emergency , BioScience , vol. 70 , no. 1 , 8 – 12

Romare , M. and Dahlöff , L . 2017 . ‘ The Life Cycle Energy Consumption and Greenhouse gas Emissions From Lithium-Ion Batteries’ , Report No. C243, Stockholm , IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute

Royal Academy of Engineering. 2010 . Electric Vehicles: Charged with Potential , London , Author

Servigne , P. and Stevens , R . 2015 . Comment tout peut s’efondrer , Paris , Science Humaines , available at https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/comment-tout-peut-s-effondrer-pablo-servigne/ 9782021223316

Smil , V . 2017A . Energy and Civilization , Boston , MIT Press

Smil , V . 2017B . Energy Transitions , Colorado , Praeger

SMMT. 2019 . UK Electric Car Registrations Surge in August but it’s a Long Road to Zero and Barriers Must be Addressed , Press Release September 5th, London , Author

Spash , C. (ed.). 2017 . Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature and Society , New York , Routledge

Spash , C . 2020 . A tale of three paradigms: realising the revolutionary potential of ecological economics , Ecological Economics vol. 169 ,

Spash , C. and Ryan , A . 2012 . Economic schools of thought on the environment: investigating unity and division , Cambridge Journal of Economics , vol. 36 , no. 5 , 1091 – 121

Staffell , I. Green , R. Gross , R. and Green , T . 2019 . How clean is my car? , Electric Insights Quarterly , vol. Q2 , 7 – 10

Statista. 2019A . Number of Motor Vehicles Registered in the United States from 1990 to 2017 (in 1000s) , [data updated June 2019], available at https://www.statista.com/statistics/183505/number-of-vehicles-in-the-united-states-since-1990/

Statista. 2019B . Car “Parc” in China from 2007 to 2018 (millions) , [data updated August 2019], available at https://www.statista.com/statistics/285306/number-of-car-owners-in-china/

Steffen , W. et al.  2018 . Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA , vol. 115 , 8252 – 9

Taylor , M . 2015 . The Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation , London , Routledge/Earthscan

UNEP. 2012 . Global Environmental Outlook Report 5: Environment for the Future We Want , New York , Author

UNEP. 2018 . Emissions Gap Report 2018 , 9th ed., New York , Author

UNEP. 2019A . Emissions Gap Report 2019 , 10th ed., New York , Author .

UNEP. 2019B . Global Environmental Outlook Report 6: Healthy Planet Healthy People , New York , Author

UNFCCC. 1992 . United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , New York , Author

UNFCCC. 2015 . Adoption of the Paris Agreement and Annex: Paris Agreement , Paris , Author

UNFCCC. 2018 . Katowice Texts , Katowice , Author

Webster , B . 2019, June 6 . Britain “could be held to ransom” on electric cars , The Times

Williamson , K. , Satre-Meloy , A. , Velasco , K. and Green , K . 2018 . Climate Change Needs Behaviour Change: Making the Case for Behavioural Solutions to Reduce Global Warming , Arlington, VA , Centre for Behaviour and the Environment

Zheng , S . 2017, April 19 . China now has over 300 million vehicles… that’s almost America’s total population , South China Morning Post

Global electric car sales and market share, 2013–18.

Source : IEA (2019, p. 10).

ULEV refers to vehicles that emit less than 75 gCO 2 per km. This essentially means BEVs, PHEVs, range-extended (typically an auxiliary fuel tank) electric vehicles, fuel cell (non-plug-in) electric vehicles and hybrid models (non-plug in vehicles with a main fuel tank but whose battery recharges and which drive short distances in electric mode).

Note, there is little sign of legislative and regulatory detail to plans as of early 2020. Furthermore, there is a difference between acknowledging that the uptake of alternatively fuelled vehicles, including BEVs, is growing and drawing the inference that UK government policy (channelled primarily via the Department for Transport) is as effective as it might be (see Environmental Audit Committee, 2016 ; National Audit Office, 2019 and also later discussions).

CEM is coordinated by the IEA and is an initiative lead by Canada and China (but including a steadily growing number of signatory countries). The EV30@30 initiative aims to achieve a 30% annual sales share for BEVs by 2030.

IEA headline statistics include plug-in hybrids so 2018 becomes 46% for Norway (IEA, 2019A, p. 10).

For example, Spash (2020) and Spash and Ryan (2012) . One might also note the work of John O’Neill at Manchester University. Perhaps the most prominent ‘realist’ working on transport and ecology is Petter Naess, at Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

The UNEP 9th Report calls for a 55% reduction by 2030.

The initial rationale in 2008 was that to achieve a maximum limit of 2°C warming global emissions needed to fall from the levels at that time to 20–24 GtCO 2 e with an implied average of 2.1–2.6 t CO 2 per capita on a global basis in 2050. This translated to a 50–60% reduction to the then global total. Since UK emissions were above average per capita, the UK reduction required was estimated at about 80%. Given that emissions then increased and atmospheric ppm has risen the original calculations are now mainly redundant.

For the work of the CCC, see: https://www.theccc.org.uk/about/ .

The report also provides useful context regarding the UN sustainable development goals ( CCC, 2019 : p. 66) and CCC thinking on growth and economics ( CCC, 2019 : pp. 46–7).

https://www.theccc.org.uk/2019/06/11/response-to-government-plan-to-legislate-for-net-zero-emissions-target/ .

And further methodological issues apply in economics (see; Morgan and Patomäki, 2017 ; Nasir and Morgan, 2018 ; Morgan, 2019A ).

For a full analysis, see https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-co2-emissions-have-fallen-29-per-cent-over-the-past-decade . The Carbon Brief analysis omits shipping and aviation. As the campaign group Transport and Environment notes UK shipping was responsible for 14.4 MtCO 2 , which is the third highest in Europe (after the Netherlands and Spain) and shipping is exempt from tax on fossil fuels under EU law. See p. 20: https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/Study-EU_shippings_climate_record_20191209_final.pdf .

UK coal use for energy supply reduced by approximately 90% from 1990 to 2017 and in 2019 amounted to just 2% of the energy mix and in 2019 the UK went two weeks without using any coal at all for power production (the first time since 1882); 1990 to 2010 natural gas use steadily increased from a near-zero base but has declined since 2010 as use of renewables has grown. Coal use in manufacturing has decreased by 75% from 1990 to 2017 ( ONS, 2019 ). As noted, some assessments place the reduction in total emissions at around 40% based on other metrics and the tabulated figures I provide indicate yet another percentage— all however are trend decreases indicative of a general direction of travel.

‘Embedded emissions’ or the UK carbon footprint is addressed by the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). To be clear, there is a whole set of further issues that one might address in regard of measurement of emissions—how they are attributed and what this means (where created, where induced through demand, which state, what corporation and so different ‘Cartesian’ claims regarding the significance of location are possible), and this is indicative of the conflict over representation and partition of responsibility (so whilst the climate does not care about borders, they have infected measurement and policy). There is no scientifically neutral way to achieve this, merely different sets of criteria with different consequences (I thank an anonymous referee for extended comment on this, see also Taylor, 2015 ; who argues that adaptation politics produces a focus on governance within existing political and economic structures based on borders, etc.).

Congestion charges in London or a plastic bag tax do not meet this threshold.

This is supported, for example, by The Climate Group’s EV100 initiative: a voluntary scheme where corporations commit to making electric the ‘new normal’ of their vehicle fleets by 2030 (recognising that over half of annual new registrations are owned by businesses) https://www.theclimategroup.org/project/ev100 .

Until recently Tesla had one main production centre in California. However, it now also has a $5 billion factory in Shanghai and plans for a factory in Berlin. Tesla is currently the world’s largest producer of BEVs (368,000 units in 2019), followed by the Chinese company BYD Auto (195,000 units in 2019). Tesla was founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpenning in response to General Motors scrapping its EV programme (as unprofitable). Elon Musk joined as a HNWI first-round investor in February 2004 (he put in $6.5 m of the total $7.5 m and became chairman of the Tesla board); Eberhard was initially CEO but was removed and replaced by Musk in 2007 and Tarpenning left in 2008. Tesla floated on the Nasdaq in June 2010 at $17 per share and exceeded $500 per share for the first time in January 2020. Tesla is the USA’s most valuable car manufacturer by market capitalisation (worth more than Ford and GM combined).

The European Commission’s collaborative research forum JEC has been producing ‘well-to-wheels’ analyses of energy efficiency of different engine technologies since the beginning of the century. The USA periodically publishes the findings of its GREET model (the Greenhouse gases Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation model). See https://greet.es.anl.gov .

For example, since 1985 according to Carbon Brief global coal use in power production measured in terawatt hours only reduced in 2009 and 2015 (though it seems likely to do so in 2019); China notably continues to build coal-fired power plants though the rate of growth of use has slowed. (According to the IEA Coal report, 2019, China consumed 3,756 million tonnes of coal in 2018 (a 1% increase) and India 986 million tonnes (a 5% increase). Renewables are a growing part of an expanding global energy system.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-coal-power-set-for-record-fall-in-2019 .

Staffell et al . observe that the British electricity grid produces an average 204 gCO 2 per kWh in 2019 and a standard petrol car emits 120–160 gCO 2 per km.

This is a point made by Richard Smith. There are, of course, alternatives to aluminium. One should also note that manufacturers are responding to consumer preference by increasing the average size of models and this is increasing the weight and resource use. In February 2020, for example, Which Magazine analysed 292 popular car models and found that they were on average 3.4% or 67 kg heavier than older models and this was offsetting some of the efficiency gains for emissions.

And the argument this is leading to is that it makes far greater sense to default to greater dependence on prudential social redesign, rather than optimistic technocentrism, behind which is techno-politics.

For discussion of battery technology and scope for improvement, see Manzetti and Mariasiu (2015) and Faraday Institution (2019) . Currently, most BEVs use lithium-ion phosphate, nickel-manganese cobalt oxide or aluminium oxide batteries. Liquid electrolyte constituents require containment and shielding. Specifically, a battery creates a flow of electrons from the positive electrode (the cathode made of a lithium metal oxide, etc. from the previous list) through a conducting electrolyte medium (lithium salt in an organic solution) to a negative electrode (the anode made typically of carbon, since early experiment with metals tended to produce excess heating and fire). This creates a current. Charging flows to the anode and discharge oxidises the anode which must then be recharged. The batteries are relatively low ‘energy density’ and can be a fire hazard when they heat. Given the chemical constituents, battery disposal is also a significant environmental hazard (see IEA, 2019A: pp. 8, 22–3). A ‘solid-state’ battery uses a specially designed (possibly glass or ceramic) solid medium that allows ions to travel through from one electrode to another. The solid-state technology is in principle higher energy density, much lighter and more durable. The implication is higher kWh batteries with greater range, charging capacity and durability and efficiency. Jeremy Dyson has reportedly invested heavily in solid-state technology and though his proposed own brand BEV is not now going ahead, reports indicate the battery technology investment will continue.

One might also consider hydrogen battery technology. Hydrogen fuel cell technology for vehicles is different than BEV. The vehicle has a tank in the rear for compressed cooled gas, which supplies the cell at the front of the car whilst driving. Refuelling is a rapid pumping process rather than a long wait. The gas has two possible origins: natural gas conversion where ‘steam methane reformation’ separates methane into hydrogen and CO 2 or water electrolysis, where grid AC electricity is converted to DC, which is applied to water and using a membrane splits it into hydrogen and waste oxygen. Currently, over 95% of hydrogen is from the former. Major investors in hydrogen technology are Shell (for natural gas conversion), IMT Power (in partnership with Shell) for water conversion and Toyota whose Mirai model is hydrogen powered.

Though fewer new cars were registered than in previous years, this significant metric for the total number of vehicles is the cumulative number of registrations (taking into account cars no longer registered). There are, however, some underlying issues: uncertainty regarding the status of diesel cars and problems of availability, cost and trust in BEVs seems to be causing many people in the UK to delay buying a new car; the expansion of Uber meanwhile has had a generational and urban effect, reducing car ownership as an aspiration amongst the young.

And re aviation, a new runway at Heathrow between 2026 and 2050.

See: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/852708/provisional-road-traffic-estimates-gb-october-2018-to-september-2019.pdf .

See: https://greenworld.org.uk/article/budget-deeply-disappointing-says-caroline-lucas

For example, global production of cobalt in 2018 was 120,000 tonnes, and production of about 2 million BEVs currently requires around 25,000 tonnes, so 10 million BEVs would require all of the current output. Cobalt traded at more than US$90,000 per ton 2018 but had fallen to around US$30,000 at the end of 2019.

In the UK, the current daily consumption of petrol and diesel for road transport is about 125 million litres or about 45 billion litres per year. So, BEVs are essentially substituting for this scale of energy use, shifting demand to electricity generation. National Grid attempted to model this in 2017. Their forecast (highly contingent obviously) suggests that if all cars sold by 2040 were BEVs and thus the car market was dominated by BEVs by 2050 and if most vehicles were charged at peak times in 2050 then an additional 30 gigawatts of electricity would be required. This is about 50% greater than the current peak winter demand in 2017. This was widely reported in the press. This best/worst case, of course, does not allow for innovative solutions such as off-peak home charging pioneered by Ovo and other niche suppliers. However, even with such solutions, there will still be a net increase in required capacity from the system. This has been estimated at about 10 new Hinckley power stations.

One possible long-term solution currently in development is toughened solar panel devices that can be laid as a road or car park surfaces, enabling contact recharging of the vehicle (in motion or otherwise). There are, however, multiple problems with the technology so far.

For example, analysis from Capital Economics suggests a three-way charging split is likely to develop: home recharging is likely to dominate, followed by an on-route charging model (substituting for current petrol forecourts at roadside) and destination recharging (given charging is slower than filling a fuel tank it makes sense to transform car parks at destinations into charging centres—supermarkets, etc.). They estimate UK demand at 25 million BEV chargers by 2050 of which all but 2.6 million will be home charging. As of early 2020, there were 8,400 filling stations which might be fully converted. Tesco has a reported commitment to install 2,400 charging points. These are issues frequently reported in the press.

This point can also be made in other ways. Not only does the emissions saving relate to net new sources of cars, but the contrast is also in terms of trend changes in the size of vehicle. According to the recent IEA World Energy Outlook report ( IEA, 2019B ), the number of SUVs is increasing and these consume around 25% more fuel than a mid-range car. If current growth trends continue (SUVs are 42% of new sales in China, 30% in India and about 50% in the USA), the IEA projects that the take-up of ICE SUVs will more than offset any marginal gains in emissions from the transition to BEVs.

It is also the case that the projected ‘savings’ from ULEVs are likely inaccurate. Following the EU, most countries adopted (and manufacturers report using) the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP). This became mandatory in the UK from September 2018. The WLTP is the new laboratory defined test for car distance-energy metrics. Vehicles are tested at 23°C, but without associated use of A/C or heating. Though claimed to as realistic than its predecessors, it is still basically unrealistic. Temperature range for ULEVs has significant consequences for battery performance and for use of on-board services, so real distance travelled per unit of energy is liable to be less. For similar reasons, ICEs will also travel less distance per litre of fuel so this is not a comparative gain for ICEs, it is likely a comparative loss to all of us if we rely on the figures.

See https://www.theccc.org.uk/2018/07/10/road-to-zero-a-missed-opportunity/ .

See https://www.theccc.org.uk/2018/07/10/governments-road-to-zero-strategy-falls-short-ccc-says/ .

See https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/shared-avs-could-save-the-world-private-avs-could-ruin-it/ .

For practical network initiatives, see, for example, https://climatestrategies.org .

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Contact Cambridge Political Economy Society
• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1464-3545
• Print ISSN 0309-166X
• Copyright © 2024 Cambridge Political Economy Society
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

We apologize for the inconvenience...

To ensure we keep this website safe, please can you confirm you are a human by ticking the box below.

If you are unable to complete the above request please contact us using the below link, providing a screenshot of your experience.

https://ioppublishing.org/contacts/

• Share full article

Advertisement

Electric Cars Are Better for the Planet – and Often Your Budget, Too

By Veronica Penney Jan. 15, 2021

Electric vehicles are better for the climate than gas-powered cars, but many Americans are still reluctant to buy them. One reason: The larger upfront cost.

New data published Thursday shows that despite the higher sticker price, electric cars may actually save drivers money in the long-run.

To reach this conclusion, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated both the carbon dioxide emissions and full lifetime cost — including purchase price, maintenance and fuel — for nearly every new car model on the market.

They found electric cars were easily more climate friendly than gas-burning ones. Over a lifetime, they were often cheaper, too.

Average carbon dioxide emissions per mile

Toyota Sequoia

Diesel cars

Traditional gas-powered cars span a range of prices and emissions.

Hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles are about the same price as traditional cars, but cut emissions roughly in half.

Honda Civic

Higher emissions

Nissan Leaf

Electric cars have the lowest cost and emissions over time.

Higher cost

Average cost per month

Purchase price, maintenance, fuel

Hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles

Electric cars have the lowest cost and emissions over time .

Climate scientists say vehicle electrification is one of the best ways to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, the transportation sector is the largest source of emissions, most of which come from cars and trucks .

Jessika Trancik, an associate professor of energy studies at M.I.T. who led the research, said she hoped the data would “help people learn about how those upfront costs are spread over the lifetime of the car.”

For electric cars, lower maintenance costs and the lower costs of charging compared with gasoline prices tend to offset the higher upfront price over time. (Battery-electric engines have fewer moving parts that can break compared with gas-powered engines and they don’t require oil changes. Electric vehicles also use regenerative braking, which reduces wear and tear.)

The cars are greener over time, too, despite the more emissions-intensive battery manufacturing process. Dr. Trancik estimates that an electric vehicle’s production emissions would be offset in anywhere from six to 18 months, depending on how clean the energy grid is where the car is charging.

The new data showed hybrid cars, which run on a combination of fuel and battery power, and can sometimes be plugged in, had more mixed results for both emissions and costs. Some hybrids were cheaper and spewed less planet-warming carbon dioxide than regular cars, but others were in the same emissions and cost range as gas-only vehicles.

Traditional gas-burning cars were usually the least climate friendly option, though long-term costs and emissions spanned a wide range. Compact cars were usually cheaper and more efficient, while gas-powered SUVs and luxury sedans landed on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Dr. Trancik’s team released the data in an interactive online tool to help people quantify the true costs of their car-buying decisions — both for the planet and their budget. The new estimates update a study published in 2016 and add to a growing body of research underscoring the potential lifetime savings of electric cars.

Comparing individual cars can be useful — and sometimes surprising .

Toyota RAV4 XLE

Retail: $27,450

Average carbon dioxide

emissions per mile

Nissan Altima

Retail: $26,800

The hybrid is cheaper and has lower emissions over time, despite the higher price tag.

Toyota RAV4 LE Hybrid

Retail: $28,500

The electric Tesla and gas- powered Nissan end up costing about the same over time.

Tesla Model 3

Retail: $37,990

The electric Tesla and gas- powered Nissan end up costing about the same.

Take the Tesla Model 3, the most popular electric car in the United States. The M.I.T. team estimated the lifetime cost of the most basic model as comparable to a Nissan Altima that sells for $11,000 less upfront. (That’s even though Tesla’s federal tax incentive for electric vehicles has ended.)

Toyota’s Hybrid RAV4 S.U.V. also ends up cheaper in the long run than a similar traditional RAV4, a national bestseller, despite a higher retail price.

The charts above use nationwide average prices for gasoline and electricity to estimate lifetime costs, but the results may shift depending on where potential buyers live. (The interactive tool allows users to input their local rates.)

Hawaii, Alaska and parts of New England have some of the highest average electricity costs , while parts of the Midwest, West and South tend to have lower rates. Gas prices are lower along the Gulf Coast and higher in California. But an analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists still found that charging a vehicle was more cost effective than filling up at the pump across 50 major American cities. “We saw potential savings everywhere,” said David Reichmuth, a senior engineer for the group’s Clean Transportation Program.

Still, the upfront cost of an electric vehicle continues to be a barrier for many would-be owners.

The federal government offers a tax credit for some new electric vehicle purchases, but that does nothing to reduce the initial purchase price and does not apply to used cars. That means it disproportionately benefits wealthier Americans. Some states, like California, offer additional incentives. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has pledged to offer rebates that help consumers swap inefficient, old cars for cleaner new ones, and to create 500,000 more electric vehicle charging stations, too.

Chris Gearhart, director of the Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said electric cars will become more price competitive in coming years as battery prices drop. At the same time, new technologies to reduce exhaust emissions are making traditional cars more expensive. “With that trajectory, you can imagine that even immediately at the purchase price level, certain smaller sedans could reach purchase price parity in the next couple of years,” Dr. Gearhart said.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• 12 October 2021

Make electric vehicles lighter to maximize climate and safety benefits

• Blake Shaffer 0 ,
• Maximilian Auffhammer 1 &
• Constantine Samaras 2

Blake Shaffer is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics and School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Maximilian Auffhammer is a professor at the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA, and at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Constantine Samaras is an associate professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Rush hour in Times Square in New York City. Car-registration fees in New York are calculated according to the vehicle weight. Credit: Getty

Electric vehicles are here, and they are essential for decarbonizing transport. The United Kingdom, California, the European Union, Canada and others plan to phase out the sale of fossil-fuelled vehicles as early as 2030 — Norway plans to do it sooner. Consumers are interested. In May, the Ford Motor Company unveiled an all-electric version of its best-selling pick-up truck, the F-150 Lightning. By August, so many customers had reserved one that Ford doubled its initial production target. On 27 September, the company announced that it will spend billions of dollars to build battery factories and an electric-truck plant in the United States. Other companies are expanding their production, too.

Major investments in electric vehicles are welcome news. The sector has come a long way, but many challenges lie ahead. One issue that has received too little attention, in our view, is the increasing weight of vehicles. Pick-up trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) now account for 57% of US sales, compared with 30% in 1990. The mass of a new vehicle sold in the United States has also risen — cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks have gained 12% (173 kilograms), 7% (136 kg) and 32% (573 kg), respectively, since 1990. That’s equivalent to hauling around a grand piano and pianist. Similar trends are seen elsewhere in the world.

Electrifying vehicles adds yet more weight. Combustible, energy-dense petroleum is replaced by bulky batteries. And the rest of the vehicle must get heavier to provide the necessary structural support 1 . The electric F-150 weighs 700 kg more than its petrol-powered predecessor. Smaller electric cars are heavier than their petrol equivalents, too (see ‘Heavier electric fleet’).

Why does this matter? First and foremost is safety. The likelihood of passengers being killed in a collision with another vehicle increases by 12% for every 500-kg difference between vehicles 2 . This added risk wouldn’t apply if everyone drove cars of similar heft. But until they do, the number of casualties in crashes is likely to increase as heavy electric vehicles join lighter existing fleets. Pedestrians will also be at risk. If US residents who switched to SUVs over the past 20 years had stuck with smaller cars, more than 1,000 pedestrian deaths might have been averted, according to one study 3 .

Heavier vehicles also generate more particulate pollution from tyre wear. They require more materials and energy to build and propel them, adding to emissions and energy use.

How big a problem is this extra weight? A rough comparison between mortality costs and climate benefits shows that it is significant. Under the energy systems operating in most countries today, the cost of extra lives lost from a 700-kg increase in the weight of an electrified truck rivals the climate benefits of avoided greenhouse-gas emissions.

Two main factors are at play: the battery’s weight and supports as well as the cleanliness of the electricity grids it is charged from. In calculating the cost of the extra weight, we used the US Department of Transport’s value of US$11.6 million per avoided fatality. The cost–benefit trade-off holds even if we assume that the social cost of emitting one tonne of carbon dioxide is high, around $150; lower values, such as $50, reduce the estimates for climate benefits. Admittedly, it’s an oversimplification. Realistic cost–benefit analyses for electric vehicles require the evaluation of many other factors. These include the costs from injuries in collisions, the health benefits from cleaner air and the life-cycle impacts of different car designs.

As time goes on, cleaner grids will strengthen the case for electric vehicles. Some countries with lots of clean electricity sources, such as Norway, are already at a point at which electrifying a truck has more climate benefits than safety costs. Others, including the United States, must keep on the path to net-zero electricity systems (see ‘Cost–benefit calculus’). Yet without addressing the weight issue, the benefits for society of going electric will be smaller than they could be in the next decade. Here’s what we think researchers, policymakers and manufacturers need to do to address the issue.

Source: B. Shaffer et al.

Tax heavy cars

Basic economics tells us that activities that impose costs on others should be taxed. Setting registration charges on the basis of vehicle weight can discourage heavy vehicles and encourage light ones. Collecting weight-based charges also addresses another looming problem for governments — lost revenue from forgone petrol and diesel taxes as more electric vehicles hit the roads.

That’s potentially a lot of money. In 2019, US federal, state and local governments collected more than $112 billion in fuel taxes. Several states have already started levying fees on electric-vehicle owners, in the range of $50–200 per year, to recoup some of that lost tax. It’s fair, they argue, because fuel taxes cover part of the costs of road infrastructure, which electric-vehicle drivers use, too.

Varying such charges by weight would maintain revenue while incentivizing people to choose vehicles that are more energy efficient and impose fewer social costs 4 . It would also reduce other emissions from materials production and manufacturing.

Running a car costs much more than people think — stalling the uptake of green travel

A few places have such taxes. In Iowa, for example, the registration fee increases by $0.40 for every 45 kg of vehicle weight. In New York state, the rate is $1.50 per 45 kg for weights above 750 kg; above 1,600 kg, it rises to $2.50. France will go even further next year, charging a whopping €10 (US$11.60) for every kg that exceeds an 1,800 kg threshold. If that law didn’t already exempt electric and hybrid vehicles, it would have added €12,000 to the price of an electric truck, such as the F-150.

Adding travel distance to the fee would also incentivize people to drive less. Oregon is piloting such a programme, giving owners the option to base their registration fees on the distance they drive in a year (at a rate of roughly 1.1 cents per kilometre) in lieu of fixed annual fees. Travel data can be collected by on-board devices; some insurance companies already offer policies that are based on total mileage and other driving habits.

Shrink batteries

Batteries now cost 90% less than they did ten years ago. And their energy density has more than tripled 5 since lithium-ion batteries were introduced in 1991. Yet most of the gains in battery technology have gone to increase the distance an electric car can travel in a single charge, and to boost the car’s power. Over the past decade, for example, Nissan has brought to market a long-range version of its flagship Leaf electrical vehicle, with triple the range (364 kilometres) and double the horsepower (214 hp). But its weight has grown, too, by 14%, to 1,749 kg.

Driving range is important for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Most consumers buy cars on the basis of reach because they worry about losing power or being unable to recharge on a long trip. Yet, most car journeys are short — to the shops or school. In the United States, for example, on average, drivers travel 56 kilometres per day, far short of the maximum range for electric vehicles.

Extending that reach by another 100 kilometres or so every few years will make electric vehicles more practical for people who need to travel long distances regularly, for work for example. But even now, it has diminishing returns for the average driver. Fast-charging infrastructure is being deployed more widely. Producing lightweight batteries will reap rewards immediately.

The heavy battery pack and associated support structures make the electric Hyundai Kona around 20% heavier than its petrol counterpart. Credit: Milan Jaros/Bloomberg/Getty

Ways to lighten batteries include using materials that are more energy-dense, and removing heavier components. For example, solid-state batteries that don’t use liquid electrolytes and have the latest anode chemistries are more compact and could offer higher energy densities than is possible for lithium-ion cells. Lithium–silicon batteries can achieve higher energy densities if manufacturers use more silicon in anodes rather than graphite. Improvements can also be digital — wireless battery management systems can shed up to 90% of the web of wires. Using fewer materials helps manufacturers to save money.

Electric cars and batteries: how will the world produce enough?

But cutting-edge technologies are expensive to incorporate, raising the costs of electric cars. Government support, from the laboratory to the factory to the consumer, is thus essential to spur innovation and development. Weight-based registration charges could supply some of that money. US subsidies for electric vehicles currently increase with the storage capacity of the battery. Basing electric-vehicle subsidies instead on energy storage per kg (kWh kg −1 ) would incentivize advances in lighter batteries.

Further developments in battery technology are needed to reduce pollution from manufacturing and to consume less cobalt and other rare metals and minerals. Schemes for recycling and reusing battery and other materials need to be put in place 6 , before tens of millions of electric vehicles arrive on and then leave the roads.

Lighten frames

Tesla, Volvo, GM and other car makers are exploring using battery packaging to support part of the vehicle’s chassis. On the horizon is making the vehicle frame itself the medium to store energy. Research and development is needed to improve conductivity, strength and how structural batteries handle crashes 7 .

Mapping emissions from cars and lorries

About one-third of a vehicle’s mass is conventional steel, down from 44% in 1995. Vehicle structures can be made stronger and lighter by using advanced forms of steel, more aluminium and magnesium, and polymers reinforced with carbon fibre. Each material brings its own cost and technical challenges as well as emissions impacts from production and supply chains. Researchers need to assess these trade-offs to find safe, clean and affordable solutions.

Substituting aluminium for steel reduces vehicle weight and improves energy efficiency. But aluminium production can have nearly five times the embodied carbon emissions of steel 8 . Switching to recycled aluminium with a low-carbon grid can lower life-cycle emissions to below those of steel.

Reduce crashes

With heavier vehicles on the road, safety becomes even more important. Some vehicles already use cameras, radar and other sensors to avoid collisions by monitoring blind spots and driver alertness. These devices keep vehicles in lanes, adjust speeds, control headlights and apply the brakes if there’s a threat of a crash. Deploying such technologies across the entire US vehicle fleet could avoid thousands of fatalities, more than one million crashes and billions of dollars in social costs annually 9 .

Old ideas to improve street safety should still be encouraged — speed limits, traffic calming road designs and pedestrian-focused infrastructure. Paris, Brussels, Bilbao and other cities have limited speeds on most roads to 30 kilometres per hour.

Reducing the distance driven can help in meeting climate targets as electric and, eventually, automated vehicles become widely available 10 . Policies should ensure that alternatives such as walking, biking and public transport are safer, more convenient, accessible, affordable and reliable.

Urban designers should consider the impacts of zoning and development on driving patterns to minimize average distances travelled and air-pollution impacts that disproportionately burden vulnerable communities. One legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic is a realization of how much work can be done remotely, with less commuting. Solving these challenges will save lives and protect the climate.

Ultimately, to manage climate change, the world needs to stop emitting greenhouse gases from vehicles and power plants. Electric vehicles powered from a clean grid are an essential step in the right direction. A focus on driving lighter, safer, cleaner and less can ensure a better future for everyone.

Nature 598 , 254-256 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02760-8

Lewis, G. M. et al. Environ. Sci. Technol. 53 , 4063–4077 (2019).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Anderson, M. L. & Auffhammer, M. Rev. Econ. Stud. 81 , 535–571 (2014).

Article   Google Scholar  

Tyndall, J. Econ. Transp. 26–27 , 100219 (2021).

Davis, L. W. & Sallee, J. M. Environ. Energy Policy Econ. 1 , 65–94 (2020).

Ziegler, M. S. & Trancik, J. E. Energy Environ. Sci. 14 , 1635–1651 (2021).

Baars, J., Domenech, T., Bleischwitz, R., Melin, H. E. & Heidrich, O. Nature Sustain . 4 , 71–79 (2021).

Kalnaus, S. et al. J. Energy Storage 40 , 102747 (2021).

Wolfram, P., Tu, Q., Heeren, N., Pauliuk, S. & Hertwich, E. G. J. Ind. Ecol. 25 , 494–510 (2020).

Khan, A., Harper, C. D., Hendrickson, C. T. & Samaras, C. Accid. Anal. Prev. 125 , 207–216 (2019).

Alarfaj, A. F., Griffin, W. M. & Samaras, C. Environ. Res. Lett. 15 , 0940c2 (2020).

Download references

Reprints and permissions

Supplementary Information

• Cost–benefit calculus: calculation details

Competing Interests

After the submission of this paper, C.S. began a temporary mobility employment assignment with the US government through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. He is on Public Service Leave, and this article was prepared while he was employed at Carnegie Mellon University. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not reflect the view of the US government or any other organization.

Related Articles

• Engineering
• Climate change

What Science and Nature are good for: causing paper cuts

Research Highlight 23 AUG 24

Attosecond delays in X-ray molecular ionization

Article 21 AUG 24

Chiral kagome superconductivity modulations with residual Fermi arcs

A hot-emitter transistor based on stimulated emission of heated carriers

Article 14 AUG 24

Fully forward mode training for optical neural networks

Article 07 AUG 24

We need to prepare our transport systems for heatwaves — here’s how

Comment 05 AUG 24

AI analysed 1,500 policies to cut emissions. These ones worked

News 23 AUG 24

Extreme heat is a huge killer — these local approaches can keep people safe

News 22 AUG 24

Light bulbs have energy ratings — so why can’t AI chatbots?

Comment 21 AUG 24

Senior Researcher-Experimental Leukemia Modeling, Mullighan Lab

Memphis, Tennessee

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

Assistant or Associate Professor (Research-Educator)

The Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics in the Wayne State University School of Medicine (http://genetics.wayne.edu/) is expanding its high-...

Detroit, Michigan

Wayne State University

Postdoctoral Fellow – Cancer Immunotherapy

Tampa, Florida

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

Postdoctoral Associate - Specialist

Houston, Texas (US)

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

Postdoctoral Associate- CAR T Cells, Synthetic Biology

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

EV Cars: Can We Electrify Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis?

The transition to personal electric vehicles in the United States is a cornerstone of the plan to decarbonize transportation. But will it work?

Transportation remains the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, with passenger vehicles and trucks the most significant contributors. The growth of the electric vehicle (EV) market and the deployment of associated charging infrastructure has been encouraged by the Biden administration, with the hope that 50 percent of all new vehicle sales will be electric by 2030 . Yet, without making electrified transportation more accessible in its entirety, we may simply be trading fossil fuel conflicts for “green” conflicts. To avoid the electrification of transportation becoming a mere “technofix,” we may need to first remedy past and current injustices in the deployment of electric transport.

Existing issues of injustice have hindered the widespread adoption of electrified transportation into all communities. A legacy of disinvestment due to redlining (the explicit prevention of homeownership and governmental disinvestment based on race) and purposeful placement of undesirable land uses (in this case, federal highways) in communities of color has led to the maldevelopment of these neighborhoods. In many cases across the US, historically redlined communities have inefficient public transportation, disproportionately fewer bike lanes, and little to no shaded sidewalks (as trees can help keep sidewalks cool during hot summers), which together necessitate the ownership of a personal vehicle.

To reduce carbon emissions on a community level, it makes sense to redirect investment to boost public transit usage while encouraging the electrification of buses, trucks, high-speed local rail, and distance rail. Expanding bike lanes and sidewalks, and creating no-car “ superblocks ” disincentivizes personal vehicle usage in city centers and encourages carbon-free transport, all while increasing the neighborhood property value. It’s not simply about replacing fossilized internal combustion engines for electric ones , but about reorienting how we move about the communities we hold dear—all while reducing the need for personal transportation, alleviating pressure on the environment.

Still, greening transportation can have unintended consequences. As evidenced by the personal EV transition right now, historically redlined communities are facing a wave of “ green gentrification ,” where the installation of EV charging infrastructure, bike lanes, and sidewalks, are raising property values to such an extent where they’re unaffordable for current community members. Without affordable housing protections for vulnerable owners and renters, especially in historically redlined communities, the EV transition could stimulate the displacement of long-time residents from their homes.

Weekly Newsletter

Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday.

Privacy Policy   Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message.

This is especially unfortunate in terms of personal EVs, as it makes sense for vulnerable communities to transition first to electrified forms of transportation. Personal EVs “ hold lower operating and maintenance costs ,” writes energy systems scientist Dave Cook, thereby reducing the burden of private vehicle ownership on those who need it most. President Biden put forth a federal tax credit (one can claim up to $7,500 on a new EV, with up to $1000 available for individuals and businesses for EV charging infrastructure) that’s intended to make new EV ownership more accessible.

As Cooke points out, given all of the equity issues that surround tax credits and reimbursement systems (especially for individuals without credit access), this credit does little to make the EV market more penetrable by people who need it most. By creating equitable financing structures that are stratified by income-level and by opening the tax incentive to used EVs, automobile-market dynamics can change to address past and current power asymmetries. We may need to go above and beyond personal EV accessibility—to expanding all forms of carbon-free transit—while making sure we don’t repeat past injustices.

Support JSTOR Daily! Join our new membership program on Patreon today.

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR.

Get Our Newsletter

More stories.

• When French Citrus Colonized Algeria

Dr. AI Will See You Now

Defining and Redefining Intersex

Eisenhower and the Real-Life Nautilus

Recent posts.

• Policing the Holocaust in Paris
• Writing Online Fiction in China
• Hi, Jai Alai
• Biking While Black in DC

Support JSTOR Daily

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Machine learning
• Sustainability
• Black holes
• Classes and programs

Departments

• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Architecture
• Political Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
• Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Lincoln Laboratory
• School of Architecture + Planning
• School of Engineering
• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
• Sloan School of Management
• School of Science
• MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Designing better batteries for electric vehicles

Press contact :.

Previous image Next image

The urgent need to cut carbon emissions is prompting a rapid move toward electrified mobility and expanded deployment of solar and wind on the electric grid. If those trends escalate as expected, the need for better methods of storing electrical energy will intensify.

“We need all the strategies we can get to address the threat of climate change,” says Elsa Olivetti PhD ’07, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering. “Obviously, developing technologies for grid-based storage at a large scale is critical. But for mobile applications — in particular, transportation — much research is focusing on adapting today’s lithium-ion battery to make versions that are safer, smaller, and can store more energy for their size and weight.”

Traditional lithium-ion batteries continue to improve, but they have limitations that persist, in part because of their structure. A lithium-ion battery consists of two electrodes — one positive and one negative — sandwiched around an organic (carbon-containing) liquid. As the battery is charged and discharged, electrically charged particles (or ions) of lithium pass from one electrode to the other through the liquid electrolyte.

One problem with that design is that at certain voltages and temperatures, the liquid electrolyte can become volatile and catch fire. “Batteries are generally safe under normal usage, but the risk is still there,” says Kevin Huang PhD ’15, a research scientist in Olivetti’s group.

Another problem is that lithium-ion batteries are not well-suited for use in vehicles. Large, heavy battery packs take up space and increase a vehicle’s overall weight, reducing fuel efficiency. But it’s proving difficult to make today’s lithium-ion batteries smaller and lighter while maintaining their energy density — that is, the amount of energy they store per gram of weight.

To solve those problems, researchers are changing key features of the lithium-ion battery to make an all-solid, or “solid-state,” version. They replace the liquid electrolyte in the middle with a thin, solid electrolyte that’s stable at a wide range of voltages and temperatures. With that solid electrolyte, they use a high-capacity positive electrode and a high-capacity, lithium metal negative electrode that’s far thinner than the usual layer of porous carbon. Those changes make it possible to shrink the overall battery considerably while maintaining its energy-storage capacity, thereby achieving a higher energy density.

“Those features — enhanced safety and greater energy density — are probably the two most-often-touted advantages of a potential solid-state battery,” says Huang. He then quickly clarifies that “all of these things are prospective, hoped-for, and not necessarily realized.” Nevertheless, the possibility has many researchers scrambling to find materials and designs that can deliver on that promise.

Thinking beyond the lab

Researchers have come up with many intriguing options that look promising — in the lab. But Olivetti and Huang believe that additional practical considerations may be important, given the urgency of the climate change challenge. “There are always metrics that we researchers use in the lab to evaluate possible materials and processes,” says Olivetti. Examples might include energy-storage capacity and charge/discharge rate. When performing basic research — which she deems both necessary and important — those metrics are appropriate. “But if the aim is implementation, we suggest adding a few metrics that specifically address the potential for rapid scaling,” she says.

Based on industry’s experience with current lithium-ion batteries, the MIT researchers and their colleague Gerbrand Ceder, the Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, suggest three broad questions that can help identify potential constraints on future scale-up as a result of materials selection. First, with this battery design, could materials availability, supply chains, or price volatility become a problem as production scales up? (Note that the environmental and other concerns raised by expanded mining are outside the scope of this study.) Second, will fabricating batteries from these materials involve difficult manufacturing steps during which parts are likely to fail? And third, do manufacturing measures needed to ensure a high-performance product based on these materials ultimately lower or raise the cost of the batteries produced?

To demonstrate their approach, Olivetti, Ceder, and Huang examined some of the electrolyte chemistries and battery structures now being investigated by researchers. To select their examples, they turned to previous work in which they and their collaborators used text- and data-mining techniques to gather information on materials and processing details reported in the literature. From that database, they selected a few frequently reported options that represent a range of possibilities.

Materials and availability

In the world of solid inorganic electrolytes, there are two main classes of materials — the oxides, which contain oxygen, and the sulfides, which contain sulfur. Olivetti, Ceder, and Huang focused on one promising electrolyte option in each class and examined key elements of concern for each of them.

The sulfide they considered was LGPS, which combines lithium, germanium, phosphorus, and sulfur. Based on availability considerations, they focused on the germanium, an element that raises concerns in part because it’s not generally mined on its own. Instead, it’s a byproduct produced during the mining of coal and zinc.

To investigate its availability, the researchers looked at how much germanium was produced annually in the past six decades during coal and zinc mining and then at how much could have been produced. The outcome suggested that 100 times more germanium could have been produced, even in recent years. Given that supply potential, the availability of germanium is not likely to constrain the scale-up of a solid-state battery based on an LGPS electrolyte.

The situation looked less promising with the researchers’ selected oxide, LLZO, which consists of lithium, lanthanum, zirconium, and oxygen. Extraction and processing of lanthanum are largely concentrated in China, and there’s limited data available, so the researchers didn’t try to analyze its availability. The other three elements are abundantly available. However, in practice, a small quantity of another element — called a dopant — must be added to make LLZO easy to process. So the team focused on tantalum, the most frequently used dopant, as the main element of concern for LLZO.

Tantalum is produced as a byproduct of tin and niobium mining. Historical data show that the amount of tantalum produced during tin and niobium mining was much closer to the potential maximum than was the case with germanium. So the availability of tantalum is more of a concern for the possible scale-up of an LLZO-based battery.

But knowing the availability of an element in the ground doesn’t address the steps required to get it to a manufacturer. So the researchers investigated a follow-on question concerning the supply chains for critical elements — mining, processing, refining, shipping, and so on. Assuming that abundant supplies are available, can the supply chains that deliver those materials expand quickly enough to meet the growing demand for batteries?

In sample analyses, they looked at how much supply chains for germanium and tantalum would need to grow year to year to provide batteries for a projected fleet of electric vehicles in 2030. As an example, an electric vehicle fleet often cited as a goal for 2030 would require production of enough batteries to deliver a total of 100 gigawatt hours of energy. To meet that goal using just LGPS batteries, the supply chain for germanium would need to grow by 50 percent from year to year — a stretch, since the maximum growth rate in the past has been about 7 percent. Using just LLZO batteries, the supply chain for tantalum would need to grow by about 30 percent — a growth rate well above the historical high of about 10 percent.

Those examples demonstrate the importance of considering both materials availability and supply chains when evaluating different solid electrolytes for their scale-up potential. “Even when the quantity of a material available isn’t a concern, as is the case with germanium, scaling all the steps in the supply chain to match the future production of electric vehicles may require a growth rate that’s literally unprecedented,” says Huang.

Materials and processing

In assessing the potential for scale-up of a battery design, another factor to consider is the difficulty of the manufacturing process and how it may impact cost. Fabricating a solid-state battery inevitably involves many steps, and a failure at any step raises the cost of each battery successfully produced. As Huang explains, “You’re not shipping those failed batteries; you’re throwing them away. But you’ve still spent money on the materials and time and processing.”

As a proxy for manufacturing difficulty, Olivetti, Ceder, and Huang explored the impact of failure rate on overall cost for selected solid-state battery designs in their database. In one example, they focused on the oxide LLZO. LLZO is extremely brittle, and at the high temperatures involved in manufacturing, a large sheet that’s thin enough to use in a high-performance solid-state battery is likely to crack or warp.

To determine the impact of such failures on cost, they modeled four key processing steps in assembling LLZO-based batteries. At each step, they calculated cost based on an assumed yield — that is, the fraction of total units that were successfully processed without failing. With the LLZO, the yield was far lower than with the other designs they examined; and, as the yield went down, the cost of each kilowatt-hour (kWh) of battery energy went up significantly. For example, when 5 percent more units failed during the final cathode heating step, cost increased by about $30/kWh — a nontrivial change considering that a commonly accepted target cost for such batteries is $100/kWh. Clearly, manufacturing difficulties can have a profound impact on the viability of a design for large-scale adoption.

Materials and performance

One of the main challenges in designing an all-solid battery comes from “interfaces” — that is, where one component meets another. During manufacturing or operation, materials at those interfaces can become unstable. “Atoms start going places that they shouldn’t, and battery performance declines,” says Huang.

As a result, much research is devoted to coming up with methods of stabilizing interfaces in different battery designs. Many of the methods proposed do increase performance; and as a result, the cost of the battery in dollars per kWh goes down. But implementing such solutions generally involves added materials and time, increasing the cost per kWh during large-scale manufacturing.

To illustrate that trade-off, the researchers first examined their oxide, LLZO. Here, the goal is to stabilize the interface between the LLZO electrolyte and the negative electrode by inserting a thin layer of tin between the two. They analyzed the impacts — both positive and negative — on cost of implementing that solution. They found that adding the tin separator increases energy-storage capacity and improves performance, which reduces the unit cost in dollars/kWh. But the cost of including the tin layer exceeds the savings so that the final cost is higher than the original cost.

In another analysis, they looked at a sulfide electrolyte called LPSCl, which consists of lithium, phosphorus, and sulfur with a bit of added chlorine. In this case, the positive electrode incorporates particles of the electrolyte material — a method of ensuring that the lithium ions can find a pathway through the electrolyte to the other electrode. However, the added electrolyte particles are not compatible with other particles in the positive electrode — another interface problem. In this case, a standard solution is to add a “binder,” another material that makes the particles stick together.

Their analysis confirmed that without the binder, performance is poor, and the cost of the LPSCl-based battery is more than $500/kWh. Adding the binder improves performance significantly, and the cost drops by almost $300/kWh. In this case, the cost of adding the binder during manufacturing is so low that essentially all the of the cost decrease from adding the binder is realized. Here, the method implemented to solve the interface problem pays off in lower costs.

The researchers performed similar studies of other promising solid-state batteries reported in the literature, and their results were consistent: The choice of battery materials and processes can affect not only near-term outcomes in the lab but also the feasibility and cost of manufacturing the proposed solid-state battery at the scale needed to meet future demand. The results also showed that considering all three factors together — availability, processing needs, and battery performance — is important because there may be collective effects and trade-offs involved.

Olivetti is proud of the range of concerns the team’s approach can probe. But she stresses that it’s not meant to replace traditional metrics used to guide materials and processing choices in the lab. “Instead, it’s meant to complement those metrics by also looking broadly at the sorts of things that could get in the way of scaling” — an important consideration given what Huang calls “the urgent ticking clock” of clean energy and climate change.

This research was supported by the  Seed Fund Program  of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)  Low-Carbon Energy Center for Energy Storage ; by Shell, a founding member of MITEI; and by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, under the Advanced Battery Materials Research Program. The text mining work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and MITEI.

This article appears in the Spring 2021 issue of Energy Futures , the magazine of the MIT Energy Initiative.

Share this news article on:

Related links.

• Elsa Olivetti
• MIT Energy Initiative
• Department of Materials Science and Engineering
• Energy Futures magazine

Related Topics

• Climate change
• Electric vehicles
• Automobiles
• Transportation
• Energy storage
• Lithium-ion
• Renewable energy
• Supply chains
• Manufacturing

Related Articles

China’s transition to electric vehicles

Design could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium batteries

To boost emissions reductions from electric vehicles, know when to charge

3 Questions: The price of privacy in ride-sharing app performance

Transportation policymaking in Chinese cities

Previous item Next item

More MIT News

Pursuing the secrets of a stealthy parasite

Read full story →

Study of disordered rock salts leads to battery breakthrough

Toward a code-breaking quantum computer

Uphill battles: Across the country in 75 days

3 Questions: From the bench to the battlefield

Duane Boning named vice provost for international activities

• More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

• Map (opens in new window)
• Events (opens in new window)
• People (opens in new window)
• Careers (opens in new window)
• Accessibility
• Social Media Hub
• MIT on Facebook
• MIT on YouTube
• MIT on Instagram

March 12, 2024

Electric Vehicles Beat Gas Cars on Climate Emissions over Time

New research says building electric vehicles leaves a bigger carbon footprint than making gas-powered cars, though EVs make up the difference in the long run

By Mike Lee & E&E News

Traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, June 29, 2023.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

CLIMATEWIRE | The production of battery-powered vehicles creates more carbon dioxide than making those that run on gasoline, a new report says. But EVs overcome the emissions difference relatively quickly.

An average EV produced in the U.S. in 2023 will close the gap in about 2.2 years or 25,000 miles, according to analysis released Monday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

After that, electric vehicles emit significantly less CO2 than internal combustion vehicles, particularly when considering how long a typical car stays in service. And the advantage likely will increase as electric generation becomes cleaner, the paper said.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

“Just like any car, you have to remember they’re going to be on the road about 10 years,” said Corey Cantor, a senior associate at BNEF who helped write the study.

The break-even period is longer in other countries — four years in the U.K., 5.1 years in Germany, 5.6 years in Japan and 9.6 years in China. But by 2030, it’s projected to be significantly shorter — two years in the U.K., 2.1 years in Germany, 3.1 years in Japan and 4.6 years in China.

The research addresses one of the central criticisms of electric vehicles — the amount of pollution created by the battery supply chain, which is still centered in China.

The payback period is slightly higher than the last time BNEF calculated the emissions from EVs, but that’s due in part to changes in methodology. The new version of the study is based on the larger batteries that are common in the U.S., for instance, and it assumes that batteries are produced in China rather than the United States.

Emissions from battery production are expected to fall as the Inflation Reduction Act forces companies to move production to the United States. The law also provides incentives to clean up the electric generation industry.

Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

How Americans view electric vehicles

About four-in-ten Americans (38%) say they’re very or somewhat likely to seriously consider an electric vehicle (EV) for their next vehicle purchase, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey .

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ views on electric vehicles. We surveyed 10,329 U.S. adults from May 30 to June 4, 2023.

Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

Half of U.S. adults say they are not too or not at all likely to consider purchasing an EV, while another 13% say they do not plan to purchase a vehicle. The share of the public interested in purchasing an EV is down 4 percentage points from May 2022.

Over the past year, the Biden administration has announced a range of measures aimed at increasing EV adoption, including tax credits for EV buyers and emissions limits for car manufacturers. Major automakers are increasing EV production , and electric vehicles’ share of all new U.S. car sales rose sharply over the past two years, to 8.5%.

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, younger adults, and people living in urban areas are among the most likely to say they would consider purchasing an EV. The 9% of U.S. adults who currently own a hybrid or electric vehicle are also particularly likely to consider an EV for their next purchase. A majority of this group (68%) says they are very or somewhat likely to seriously consider it.

Among those who would consider purchasing an EV, about seven-in-ten say helping the environment (72%) and saving money on gas (70%) are major reasons why. A small share (12%) cite keeping up with the latest trends in vehicles as a major reason.

Expectations for future electric vehicle infrastructure  

One potential obstacle to greater EV adoption is the availability of public charging stations.

Currently, most EV owners charge their vehicles at home . Some who have used public chargers find that they are unreliable or limited in number. In September 2022, the Biden administration set aside $5 billion to create a network of EV charging stations .

Americans express limited confidence that the country will build the necessary infrastructure to support large numbers of EVs on the roads. Some 17% say they are extremely or very confident this will happen, while 30% are somewhat confident. And 53% are not too or not at all confident.

Republicans and GOP leaners are especially likely to doubt that the U.S. will build the charging stations and infrastructure needed to support EVs: 74% say they have not too much or no confidence at all in this. By comparison, 34% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say the same.

Americans who are confident the country will build the necessary infrastructure are more likely than others to say they would consider purchasing an EV.

Among those who are extremely or very confident that the U.S. will build the infrastructure needed to support EVs, 68% say they would be at least somewhat likely to consider purchasing an EV.

Just 19% of those who are not too or not at all confident in future EV infrastructure say they are at least somewhat likely to consider purchasing an EV.

Views on phasing out gasoline cars and trucks

Accelerating the transition to EVs is a central part of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda. The administration has proposed new emission limits for automakers that would reduce the number of gas-powered cars and trucks they could sell. Some states have gone further, with plans to ban new gas-powered car sales by 2035. 

However, the idea of phasing out the production of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 faces more public opposition than support. About six-in-ten Americans (59%) say they oppose this, while 40% favor it.

The share of Americans who favor phasing out gas-powered vehicles has declined 7 points since 2021. Support is down among both Democrats and Republicans.

Currently, a majority of Democrats (64%) favor phasing out production of gas-powered vehicles by 2035, but 84% of Republicans oppose this.

Partisans also have different emotional reactions to the idea of ending gas-powered vehicle production. A clear majority of Republicans (73%) say they would feel upset about it, but views among Democrats are more mixed. Some 37% say they would feel excited, while 43% would feel neutral and 20% would be upset.

Note: This is an update to a post originally published June 3, 2021. Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

• Partisanship & Issues

Alison Spencer is a former research analyst focusing on science and society research at Pew Research Center .

Stephanie Ross is is a former intern focusing on science and society research at Pew Research Center .

Alec Tyson is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center .

Majority of Americans support more nuclear power in the country

How americans view national, local and personal energy choices, electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the u.s., how republicans view climate change and energy issues, why some americans do not see urgency on climate change, most popular.

901 E St. NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

© 2024 Pew Research Center

Information

• Author Services

Initiatives

You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .

Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.

Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Original Submission Date Received: .

• Active Journals
• Find a Journal
• Proceedings Series
• For Authors
• For Reviewers
• For Editors
• For Librarians
• For Publishers
• For Societies
• For Conference Organizers
• Open Access Policy
• Institutional Open Access Program
• Special Issues Guidelines
• Editorial Process
• Research and Publication Ethics
• Article Processing Charges
• Testimonials
• Preprints.org
• SciProfiles
• Encyclopedia

Article Menu

• Subscribe SciFeed
• Recommended Articles
• Google Scholar
• on Google Scholar
• Table of Contents

Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.

Please let us know what you think of our products and services.

Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.

JSmol Viewer

Factors influencing consumers’ purchase intention towards electric two-wheelers.

1. Introduction

2. literature review, 3. conceptual framework and research hypotheses, 3.1. environmental concern, 3.2. perceived economic benefits, 3.3. social influence, 3.4. charging infrastructure, 3.5. attitude and purchase intention, 3.6. moderating effects of gender, 4. research methodology, 4.1. data collection and sample size, 4.2. development of the questionnaire, 4.3. data analysis method, 5. data analysis and inference, 5.1. respondent profile, 5.2. assessment of measurement model (outer model), 5.2.1. convergent validity and reliability, 5.2.2. discriminant validity, 5.3. inner structural model analysis, path analysis, 5.4. mediation effect of attitude, 5.5. moderating effect of gender, 5.6. result and discussion, 6. conclusions and limitations, 6.1. theoretical contribution, 6.2. practical implications, 6.3. limitations and further studies, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

• IEA. Electric Cars had a Record Year in 2020, with Europe Overtaking China as the Biggest Market. Available online: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2021/trends-and-developments-in-electric-vehicle-markets (accessed on 26 January 2021).
• IEA. Prospects for Electric Vehicle Deployment. Available online: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2021/prospects-for-electric-vehicle-deployment (accessed on 7 March 2021).
• Kumar Satyam. How Better Financing Options Can Help Drive Electric Two-Wheeler Adoption in India. Available online: https://www.financialexpress.com/auto/electric-vehicles/better-financing-options-to-help-drive-electric-two-wheeler-adoption-in-india-heres-how/2308807/ (accessed on 2 October 2021).
• Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Domestics Sales Trends. 2021. Available online: https://www.siam.in/statistics.aspx?mpgid=8&pgidtrail=14 (accessed on 5 October 2021).
• Brar, L.; Burgoyne, B.; Eriksson, L.; Likhari, R.; Skoufa, T.; Williams, L. The India Electric Vehicle Opportunity: Market Entry Toolkit ; Catapult Connected Places: Leeds, UK, 2021. [ Google Scholar ]
• JMK Research. E-Two-Wheeler India Market Outlook. 2021. Available online: https://jmkresearch.com/electric-vehicles-published-reports/electric-two-wheeler-india-market-outlook-2/ (accessed on 5 October 2021).
• IQAir. World’s Most Polluted Countries 2020 (PM2.5). Available online: https://www.iqair.com/us/world-most-polluted-countries (accessed on 2 October 2021).
• Union of Concerned Scientists. Each Country’s Share of CO2 Emissions. Available online: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emissions (accessed on 23 June 2021).
• NITI Aayog. NITI Aayog and World Resources Institute India Jointly Launch ‘Forum for Decarbonizing Transport’ in India. Available online: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1748514 (accessed on 4 March 2021).
• Tarei, P.K.; Chand, P.; Gupta, H. Barriers to the adoption of electric vehicles: Evidence from India. J. Clean. Prod. 2021 , 291 , 125847. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Wadhwa Nilesh. More Electric Two-Wheelers Sold in H1 2021 Than All of 2020. Autocar India. Available online: https://www.autocarindia.com/bike-news/more-electric-two-wheelers-sold-in-h1-2021-than-all-of-2020-421361 (accessed on 13 October 2021).
• Chéron, E.; Zins, M. Electric vehicle purchasing intentions: The concern over battery charge duration. Transp. Res. Part A Policy Pr. 1997 , 31 , 235–243. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Coffman, M.; Bernstein, P.; Wee, S. Electric vehicles revisited: A review of factors that affect adoption. Transp. Rev. 2016 , 37 , 79–93. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Eccarius, T.; Lu, C.-C. Adoption intentions for micro-mobility—Insights from electric scooter sharing in Taiwan. Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 2020 , 84 , 102327. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Wang, S.; Fan, J.; Zhao, D.; Yang, S.; Fu, Y. Predicting consumers’ intention to adopt hybrid electric vehicles: Using an extended version of the theory of planned behavior model. Transportation 2016 , 43 , 123–143. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Lashari, Z.; Ko, J.; Jang, J. Consumers’ Intention to Purchase Electric Vehicles: Influences of User Attitude and Perception. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 6778. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bigerna, S.; Micheli, S. Attitudes Toward Electric Vehicles: The Case of Perugia Using a Fuzzy Set Analysis. Sustainability 2018 , 10 , 3999. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Will, S.; Luger-Bazinger, C.; Schmitt, M.; Zankl, C. Towards the Future of Sustainable Mobility: Results from a European Survey on (Electric) Powered-Two Wheelers. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 7151. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Rezvani, Z.; Jansson, J.; Bodin, J. Advances in consumer electric vehicle adoption research: A review and research agenda. Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 2015 , 34 , 122–136. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Habich-Sobiegalla, S.; Kostka, G.; Anzinger, N. Electric vehicle purchase intentions of Chinese, Russian and Brazilian citizens: An international comparative study. J. Clean. Prod. 2018 , 205 , 188–200. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Higueras-Castillo, E.; Guillén, A.; Herrera, L.-J.; Liébana-Cabanillas, F. Adoption of electric vehicles: Which factors are really important? Int. J. Sustain. Transp. 2020 , 15 , 799–813. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ajzen, I. The Theory of Planned Behavior. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 1991 , 50 , 179–211. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ajzen, I.; Fishbein, M. Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychol. Bull. 1977 , 84 , 888–918. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Chen, M.-F. Extending the theory of planned behavior model to explain people’s energy savings and carbon reduction behavioral intentions to mitigate climate change in Taiwan–moral obligation matters. J. Clean. Prod. 2016 , 112 , 1746–1753. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Legris, P.; Ingham, J.; Collerette, P. Why do people use information technology? A critical review of the technology acceptance model. Inf. Manag. 2003 , 40 , 191–204. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Eccarius, T.; Lu, C.-C. Powered two-wheelers for sustainable mobility: A review of consumer adoption of electric motorcycles. Int. J. Sustain. Transp. 2020 , 14 , 215–231. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Venkatesh, V.; Walton, S.M.; Thong, J.Y.L. Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. MIS Quart. 2012 , 36 , 157–178. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Khazaei, H.; Tareq, M.A. Moderating effects of personal innovativeness and driving experience on factors influencing adoption of BEVs in Malaysia: An integrated SEM–BSEM approach. Heliyon 2021 , 7 , e08072. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bjerkan, K.Y.; Nørbech, T.E.; Nordtømme, M.E. Incentives for promoting Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) adoption in Norway. Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 2016 , 43 , 169–180. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Lévay, P.Z.; Drossinos, Y.; Thiel, C. The effect of fiscal incentives on market penetration of electric vehicles: A pairwise comparison of total cost of ownership. Energy Policy 2017 , 105 , 524–533. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Asadi, S.; Nilashi, M.; Samad, S.; Abdullah, R.; Mahmoud, M.; Alkinani, M.H.; Yadegaridehkordi, E. Factors impacting consumers’ intention toward adoption of electric vehicles in Malaysia. J. Clean. Prod. 2021 , 282 , 124474. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Jian, W.; Zhou, W. Factors Influencing the Purchase Willingness towards Electric Vehicles in China ; Uppsala University: Uppsala, Sweden, 2019. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jou, R.-C.; Chen, T.-Y. Factors affecting public transportation, car, and motorcycle usage. Transp. Res. Part A Policy Pr. 2014 , 61 , 186–198. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Amron, A. Buying Decision in the Consumers of Automatic Motorcycle in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. J. Mark. Manag. 2018 , 6 , 275–280. [ Google Scholar ]
• Guerra, E. Electric vehicles, air pollution, and the motorcycle city: A stated preference survey of consumers’ willingness to adopt electric motorcycles in Solo, Indonesia. Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 2019 , 68 , 52–64. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Chen, H.-S.; Tsai, B.-K.; Hsieh, C.-M. Determinants of Consumers’ Purchasing Intentions for the Hydrogen-Electric Motorcycle. Sustainability 2017 , 9 , 1447. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Mamun, A.-A.; Zainol, R.N.; Hayat, N. Electric Scooter–An Alternative Mode of Transportation for Malaysian Youth. Available online: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100232/v1 (accessed on 5 October 2021). [ CrossRef ]
• Utami, M.W.D.; Yuniaristanto, Y.; Sutopo, W. Adoption Intention Model of Electric Vehicle in Indonesia. J. Optimasi Sist. Ind. 2020 , 19 , 70–81. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Chirag, M.; Sonali, Y. Environmentally Conscious Consumers and Electric Vehicle Adoption Behaviour: Moderating Role of Perceived Economic Benefit. Acad. Mark. Stud. J. 2021 , 25 , 1–16. [ Google Scholar ]
• Javid, M.A.; Ali, N.; Abdullah, M.; Campisi, T.; Shah, S.A.H. Travelers’ Adoption Behavior towards Electric Vehicles in Lahore, Pakistan: An Extension of Norm Activation Model (NAM) Theory. J. Adv. Transp. 2021 , 2021 , 7189411. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Tu, J.-C.; Yang, C. Key Factors Influencing Consumers’ Purchase of Electric Vehicles. Sustainability 2019 , 11 , 3863. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Xu, Y.; Zhang, W.; Bao, H.; Zhang, S.; Xiang, Y. A SEM–Neural Network Approach to Predict Customers’ Intention to Purchase Battery Electric Vehicles in China’s Zhejiang Province. Sustainability 2019 , 11 , 3164. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Peters, A.; Dütschke, E. How do Consumers Perceive Electric Vehicles? A Comparison of German Consumer Groups. J. Environ. Policy Plan. 2014 , 16 , 359–377. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Lai, I.K.W.; Liu, Y.; Sun, X.; Zhang, H.; Xu, W. Factors Influencing the Behavioural Intention towards Full Electric Vehicles: An Empirical Study in Macau. Sustainability 2015 , 7 , 12564–12585. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Dash, A. Determinants of EVs adoption: A study on green behavior of consumers. Smart Sustain. Built Environ. 2020 , 10 , 125–137. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Orbell, S.; Crombie, I.; Johnston, G. Social cognition and social structure in the prediction of cervical screening uptake. Br. J. Health Psychol. 1996 , 1 , 35–50. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Yang, C.; Tu, J.-C.; Jiang, Q. The Influential Factors of Consumers’ Sustainable Consumption: A Case on Electric Vehicles in China. Sustainability 2020 , 12 , 3496. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Venkatesh, V.; Davis, F.D. A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model: Four Longitudinal Field Studies. Manag. Sci. 2000 , 46 , 186–204. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Lee, J.; Baig, F.; Talpur, M.; Shaikh, S. Public Intentions to Purchase Electric Vehicles in Pakistan. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 5523. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Avendus. Electric Vehicles: Charging Towards a Bright Future. 2020. Available online: https://www.avendus.com/crypted_pdf_path/img_5efde54946e837.06392761_EVReport2020_Avendus.pdf (accessed on 4 June 2021).
• Nair, S.; Rao, N.; Mishra, S.; Patil, A. India’s Charging Infrastructure d Biggest Single Point Impediment in EV Adaptation in India. In Proceedings of the IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference (ITEC-India), Pune, India, 3–15 December 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang, S.; Wang, J.; Li, J.; Wang, J.; Liang, L. Policy implications for promoting the adoption of electric vehicles: Do consumer’s knowledge, perceived risk and financial incentive policy matter? Transp. Res. Part A Policy Pr. 2018 , 117 , 58–69. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Khurana, A.; Kumar, V.V.R.; Sidhpuria, M. A Study on the Adoption of Electric Vehicles in India: The Mediating Role of Attitude. Vision: J. Bus. Perspect. 2020 , 24 , 23–34. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• She, Z.-Y.; Sun, Q.; Ma, J.-J.; Xie, B.-C. What are the barriers to widespread adoption of battery electric vehicles? A survey of public perception in Tianjin, China. Transp. Policy 2017 , 56 , 29–40. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Chen, C.-F.; de Rubens, G.Z.; Noel, L.; Kester, J.; Sovacool, B.K. Assessing the socio-demographic, technical, economic and behavioral factors of Nordic electric vehicle adoption and the influence of vehicle-to-grid preferences. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 2020 , 121 , 109692. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hair, J.F.; Thomas, G.M.H.; Ringle, C.; Sarstedt, M. A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) ; SAGE Publication Inc.: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 2012. [ Google Scholar ]
• Faul, F.; Erdfelder, E.; Lang, A.-G.; Buchner, A. G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behav. Res. Methods 2007 , 39 , 175–191. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• NBSP; Cohen, J. A Power Primer. Psychol. Bull. 1992 , 112 , 155–159. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hair, J.F.; Risher, J.J.; Sarstedt, M.; Ringle, C.M. When to use and how to report the results of PLS-SEM. Eur. Bus. Rev. 2019 , 31 , 2–24. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Straub, D.W. Validating Instruments in MIS Research. MIS Q. Manag. Inf. Syst. 1989 , 13 , 147. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Hair, J.F., Jr.; Matthews, L.M.; Matthews, R.L.; Sarstedt, M. PLS-SEM or CB-SEM: Updated guidelines on which method to use. Int. J. Multivar. Data Anal. 2017 , 1 , 107. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Anderson, J.C.; Gerbing, D.W. Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychol. Bull. 1988 , 103 , 411–423. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Krabbe, P.F.M. The Measurement of Health and Health Status: Concepts, Methods and Applications from a Multidisciplinary Perspective ; Academic Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2016. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hair, J.F.; Ringle, C.M.; Sarstedt, M. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling: Rigorous Applications, Better Results and Higher Acceptance. Long Range Plan. 2013 , 46 , 1–12. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Byrne, B.M. Structural Equation Modeling with AMOS ; Routledge: Abingdon, UK, 2013. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Jr., J.F.H.; Babin, B.J.; Krey, N. Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling in theJournal of Advertising: Review and Recommendations. J. Advert. 2017 , 46 , 163–177. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Ali, F.; Rasoolimanesh, S.M.; Sarstedt, M.; Ringle, C.M.; Kisang, R. An Assessment of the Use of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in Hospitality Research. Int. J. Contemp. Hosp. Manag. 2018 , 30 , 514–538. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ Green Version ]
• Gefen, D.; Karahanna, E.; Straub, D.W. Trust and TAM in Online Shopping: An Integrated Model. MIS Q. Manag. Inf. Syst. 2003 , 27 . [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Sanchez, G. PLS Path Modeling with R Trowchez Editions ; Trowchez Editions: Berkeley, CA, USA, 2013. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fornell, C.; Larcker, D.F. Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error. J. Mark. Res. 1981 , 18 , 39–50. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hubley, A.M.; Zumbo, B.D. A Dialectic on Validity: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going. J. Gen. Psychol. 1996 , 123 , 207–215. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Taherdoost, H. Validity and Reliability of the Research Instrument; How to Test the Validation of a Questionnaire/Survey in a Research. SSRN Electron. J. 2018 , 5 , 28–36. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hamdollah, R.; Baghaei, P. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling with R. Pract. Assess. Res. Eval. 2016 , 21 , 21. [ Google Scholar ]
• Henseler, J.; Hubona, G.; Ray, P.A. Using PLS path modeling in new technology research: Updated guidelines. Ind. Manag. Data Syst. 2016 , 116 , 2–20. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Wetzels, M.; Schröder, O.; Oppen, V. Using PLS Path Modeling for Assessing Hierarchical Construct Models: Guidelines and Empirical Illustration. MIS Q. Manag. Inf. Syst. 2009 , 33 , 177. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hair, J.F., Jr.; Sarstedt, M.; Hopkins, L.; Kuppelwieser, V.G. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM): An Emerging Tool in Business Research. Eur. Bus. Rev. 2014 , 26 , 106–121. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Sarstedt, M.; Henseler, J.; Ringle, C.M. Multigroup Analysis in Partial Least Squares (PLS) Path Modeling: Alternative Methods and Empirical Results. New Chall. Int. Mark. 2011 , 22 , 195–218. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Han, L.; Wang, S.; Zhao, D.; Li, J. The intention to adopt electric vehicles: Driven by functional and non-functional values. Transp. Res. Part A Policy Pract. 2017 , 103 , 185–197. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hindustan Times Auto. Electric Vehicle Sales Slump 19.4% in FY2021 to 238,120 Units. Available online: https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/news/electric-vehicle-sales-slump-19-4-in-fy2021-to-238-120-units-41619346113748.html (accessed on 12 October 2021).

Click here to enlarge figure

Share and Cite

Jayasingh, S.; Girija, T.; Arunkumar, S. Factors Influencing Consumers’ Purchase Intention towards Electric Two-Wheelers. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 12851. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212851

Jayasingh S, Girija T, Arunkumar S. Factors Influencing Consumers’ Purchase Intention towards Electric Two-Wheelers. Sustainability . 2021; 13(22):12851. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212851

Jayasingh, Sudarsan, T. Girija, and Sivakumar Arunkumar. 2021. "Factors Influencing Consumers’ Purchase Intention towards Electric Two-Wheelers" Sustainability 13, no. 22: 12851. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212851

Article Metrics

Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.

Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• The Big Story
• Newsletters
• Steven Levy's Plaintext Column
• WIRED Classics from the Archive
• WIRED Insider
• WIRED Consulting

How Electric-Vehicle Battery Fires Happen—and How You Should React

Lithium-ion battery fires can be intense and frightening. As someone who used to repair second-hand smartphones , I’ve extinguished my fair share of flaming iPhones with punctured lithium-ion batteries . And the type of smartphone battery in your pocket right now, is similar to what’s inside of electric vehicles . Except, the EV battery stores way more energy—so much energy that some firefighters are receiving special training to extinguish the extra-intense EV flames that are emitted by burning EV batteries after road accidents.

If you’ve been reading the news about EVs, you’ve likely encountered plenty of scary articles about battery fires on the rise. Recently, the US National Transportation Safety Board and the California Highway Patrol announced they are investigating a Tesla semi truck fire that ignited after the vehicle struck a tree. The lithium-ion battery burned for around four hours.

Does this mean that you should worry about your personal electric vehicle as a potential fire hazard ? Not really. It makes more sense to worry about a gas-powered vehicle going up in flames than an electric vehicle, since EVs are less likely to catch fire than their more traditional transportation counterparts.

“Fires because of battery manufacturing defects are really very rare,” says Matthew McDowell, a codirector of Georgia Tech’s Advanced Battery Center . “Especially in electric vehicles, because they also have battery management systems.” The software keeps tabs on the different cells that comprise an EV’s battery and can help prevent the battery from being pushed beyond its limits.

How Do Electric Vehicle Fires Happen?

During a crash that damages the EV battery, a fire may start with what’s called thermal runaway. EV batteries aren’t one solid brick. Rather, think of these batteries as a collection of many smaller batteries, called cells, pressed up against each other. With thermal runaway, a chemical reaction located in one of the cells lights an initial fire, and the heat soon spreads to each adjacent cell until the entire EV battery is burning.

Greg Less, director of the University of Michigan’s Battery Lab , breaks down EV battery fires into two, distinct categories: accidents and manufacturing defects. He considers accidents to be everything from a collision that punctures the battery to a charging mishap. “Let's take those off the table,” says Less. “Because, I think people understand that, regardless of the vehicle type, if you're in an accident, there could be a fire.”

While all EV battery fires are hard to put out, fires from manufacturing defects are likely more concerning to consumers, due to their seeming randomness. (Think back to when all those Samsung phones had to be recalled because battery issues made them fire hazards.) How do these rare issues with EV batteries manufacturing cause fires, at what may feel like random moments?

It all comes down to how the batteries are engineered. “There's some level of the engineering that has gone wrong and caused the cell to short, which then starts generating heat,” says Less. “Heat causes the liquid electrolyte to evaporate, creating a gas inside the cell. When the heat gets high enough, it catches fire, explodes, and then propagates to other cells.” These kinds of defects are likely what caused the highly publicized recent EV fires in South Korea , one of which damaged over a hundred vehicles in a parking lot.

How to React if Your EV Catches Fire

According to the National Fire Prevention Agency , if an EV ever catches fire while you’re behind the wheel, immediately find a safe way to pull over and get the car away from the main road. Then, turn off the engine and make sure everyone leaves the vehicle immediately. Don’t delay things by grabbing personal belongings, just get out. Remain over 100 feet away from the burning car as you call 911 and request the fire department.

Also, you shouldn’t attempt to put out the flame yourself. This is a chemical fire, so a couple buckets of water won’t sufficiently smother the flames. EV battery fires can take first responders around ten times more water to extinguish than a fire in a gas-powered vehicle. Sometimes the firefighters may decide to let the battery just burn itself out , rather than dousing it with water.

Once an EV battery catches fire, it’s possible for the chemical fire to reignite after the initial burn dies down. It’s even possible for the battery to go up in flames again days later. “Both firefighters and secondary responders, such as vehicle recovery or tow companies, also need to be aware of the potential for stranded energy that may remain in the undamaged portions of the battery,” says Thomas Barth, an investigator and biomechanics engineer for the NTSB, in an emailed statement. “This energy can pose risks for electric shock or cause the vehicle to reignite.”

Although it may be tempting to go back into the car and grab your wallet or other important items if the flame grows smaller or goes out for a second, resist the urge. Wait until your local fire department arrives to assess the overall situation and give you the all clear. Staying far away from the car also helps minimize your potential for breathing in unhealthy fumes emitted from the battery fire.

How Could EV Batteries Be Safer?

In addition to quick recalls and replacements of potentially faulty lithium-ion batteries, both researchers I spoke with were excited about future possibilities for a different kind of battery, called solid-state , to make EVs even more reliable. “These batteries could potentially show greater thermal stability than lithium-ion batteries,” says McDowell. “When it heats up a lot, it may just remain pretty stable.” With a solid-state battery, the liquid electrolyte is no longer part of battery cells, removing the most flammable aspect of battery design.

These solid-state batteries are already available in some smaller electronics, but producing large versions of the batteries at vast scale continues to be a hurdle that EV manufacturers are working to overcome.

You Might Also Like …

In your inbox: The best and weirdest stories from WIRED’s archive

How the brain decides what to remember

The Big Story: Meet Priscila, queen of the rideshare mafia

Silicon Valley's soulless plutocrats flip for Donald Trump

Event: Join us for The Big Interview on December 3 in San Francisco

WIRED COUPONS

Turbo Tax Live Assisted - 10% off

H&R Block Coupons & Offers

Enjoy $15 Off Your Orders With Instacart Coupon

DoorDash Promo Code: 25% off your order

Finish Line Coupon Code: 10% Off Your Cart

Groupon Promo Code: Extra 10% off Your Next Order

Suggested Searches

• Climate Change
• Expedition 64
• Mars perseverance
• SpaceX Crew-2
• International Space Station
• View All Topics A-Z

Humans in Space

Earth & climate, the solar system, the universe, aeronautics, learning resources, news & events.

FAQ: NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Return Status

NASA’s EXCITE Mission Prepared for Scientific Balloon Flight

Talented Teams Tackle Toasty Planet

• Search All NASA Missions
• A to Z List of Missions
• Upcoming Launches and Landings
• Spaceships and Rockets
• Communicating with Missions
• James Webb Space Telescope
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Why Go to Space
• Commercial Space
• Destinations
• Living in Space
• Explore Earth Science
• Earth, Our Planet
• Earth Science in Action
• Earth Multimedia
• Earth Science Researchers
• Pluto & Dwarf Planets
• Asteroids, Comets & Meteors
• The Kuiper Belt
• The Oort Cloud
• Skywatching
• The Search for Life in the Universe
• Black Holes
• The Big Bang
• Dark Energy & Dark Matter
• Earth Science
• Planetary Science
• Astrophysics & Space Science
• The Sun & Heliophysics
• Biological & Physical Sciences
• Lunar Science
• Citizen Science
• Astromaterials
• Aeronautics Research
• Human Space Travel Research
• Science in the Air
• NASA Aircraft
• Flight Innovation
• Supersonic Flight
• Air Traffic Solutions
• Green Aviation Tech
• Drones & You
• Technology Transfer & Spinoffs
• Space Travel Technology
• Technology Living in Space
• Manufacturing and Materials
• Science Instruments
• For Kids and Students
• For Educators
• For Colleges and Universities
• For Professionals
• Science for Everyone
• Requests for Exhibits, Artifacts, or Speakers
• STEM Engagement at NASA
• NASA's Impacts
• Centers and Facilities
• Directorates
• Organizations
• People of NASA
• Internships
• Our History
• Doing Business with NASA
• Get Involved

NASA en Español

• Aeronáutica
• Ciencias Terrestres
• Sistema Solar
• All NASA News
• Video Series on NASA+
• Newsletters
• Social Media
• Media Resources
• Upcoming Launches & Landings
• Virtual Events
• Image of the Day
• Sounds and Ringtones
• Interactives
• STEM Multimedia

Hubble Reaches a Lonely Light in the Dark

NASA Funds Studies to Support Crew Performance on Long-Duration Missions

NextSTEP R: Lunar Logistics and Mobility Studies

Station Science Top News: August 16, 2024

STV Precursor Coincident Datasets

NASA-Designed Greenhouse Gas-Detection Instrument Launches

Airborne Surface, Cryosphere, Ecosystem, and Nearshore Topography

The Making of Our Alien Earth: The Undersea Volcanoes of Santorini, Greece

NASA Shares Asteroid Bennu Sample in Exchange with JAXA

Gateway: Energizing Exploration

Hubble Finds Structure in an Unstructured Galaxy

NASA Composite Manufacturing Initiative Gains Two New Members

Beyond the Textbook: DC-8 Aircraft Inspires Students in Retirement

NASA Celebrates Ames’s Legacy of Research on National Aviation Day

Copernicus Trajectory Design and Optimization System

Perseverance Pays Off for Student Challenge Winners

How Do I Navigate NASA Learning Resources and Opportunities?

Preguntas frecuentes: estado del retorno de la prueba de vuelo tripulado boeing de la nasa.

Astronauta de la NASA Frank Rubio

Diez maneras en que los estudiantes pueden prepararse para ser astronautas

First look at hybrid electric research aircraft .

Anisha Engineer

Media specialist.

In a special unveiling ceremony on Aug. 22, 2024, the public received a first look at magniX’s Dash 7 aircraft that will serve as a testbed for sustainable aviation research with NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) project. 

Hosted by magniX at King County International Airport, commonly known as Boeing Field, in Seattle, Washington, leaders from NASA and magniX unveiled the research vehicle in its new livery.  

EPFD is a collaboration between NASA and industry to demonstrate the capabilities of electrified aircraft propulsion technologies in reducing emissions for future commercial aircraft in mid-2030s.  

As part of this demonstration, magniX will modify the Dash 7 with a new hybrid electric system to conduct ground and flight tests. NASA will use data gathered from these tests to identify and minimize barriers in certifying these new technologies and help inform new standards and regulations for future electrified aircraft.  

“We are a research organization that continues to advance aviation, solve the problems of flight, and lead the community into the future,” said Robert A. Pearce, associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. “Through our EPFD project, we’re taking big steps in partnership to make sure electric aviation is part of the future of commercial flight.” 

With the aircraft livery complete, magniX will begin the process of converting the Dash 7 into a research testbed with a hybrid electric propulsion system. Flight tests with the new system are planned for 2026.

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman