US President Joe Biden tests the new Ford F-150 Lightning Truck during a visit to the VDAB at the Ford Dearborn Development Center in Dearborn, Michigan, May 18, 2021.
Leah Millis | Reuters
According to a new study by the International Council on Clean Transportation, the US lags behind China and Europe in domestic production and adoption of electric vehicles – and that gap widened from 2017 to 2020.
According to the study, the global number of electric cars has increased to over 10 million in 2020 since 2010.
At the end of 2017, US-based automakers had produced 20% of the world’s electric vehicle inventory. By 2020, US automakers represented only 18% of the cumulative amount of electric vehicles produced since 2010, while the share of production in China and Europe increased.
From 2010 to 2020, researchers found that China was the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles geographically, accounting for about 44% of all electric vehicles manufactured in that decade, with about 4.6 million units in both production and sales.
Europe produced 25% of the world’s electric vehicles from 2010 to 2020, producing 2.6 million electric vehicles and selling 3.2 million (making the region a net importer).
Tesla China-made Model 3 vehicles are seen during a delivery event at its plant in Shanghai, east China, Jan. 7, 2020.
Aly song | Reuters
In the last year alone, U.S. automakers produced at least 450,000 electric vehicles, with Tesla accounting for about 85% of that production for the year. Annual exports of electric vehicles from plants in the United States exceeded 215,000 in 2020, most of any single nation.
Greater demand overseas than in the states makes it necessary for electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla to ship and set up stores outside of the US. Companies are more likely to sell their electric vehicles near the plants where they are assembled.
Electrics (including hybrids and all-electric vehicles) accounted for just 2.3% of new car sales in the U.S. in 2020. Meanwhile, 10% of new car sales in Europe were electrics and 6% were electrics in China.
This demand abroad creates a kind of network effect. Automakers have invested more money and are planning more aggressive plans to build new plants and sell a wider variety of electric vehicle models overseas than in the States, the ICCT study finds.
For example, according to the company’s previously announced plans and investments, Volkswagen is expected to have the largest total production of electric vehicles by 2025, with no all-electric plants in the US but several all-electric assembly plants in Europe and China.
And only General Motors and Tesla plan to have vehicle assembly plants solely for the production of electric vehicles in the US by 2025.
A policy that “focuses on a transition to zero-emission vehicles” or the lack thereof has spurred these trends, the ICCT researchers concluded.
In Europe, the study found, automakers have introduced dozens of new electric models and have greatly increased the number of electric cars they make or want to build in recent years compared to the US. This step largely serves to comply with regional vehicle emission standards.
In China, both “demand- and supply-side measures” helped increase the production and acceptance of electric vehicles, according to the study. China has expanded and tightened a variety of consumer incentives that restrict internal combustion engine vehicles and instead make it easier to buy, register, and drive electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, some efficiency standards for vehicles were withdrawn in the US under President Trump. And state incentives to buy electric vehicles began to be phased out for automakers with the highest volume of electric vehicles like Tesla and GM.
A new bipartisan infrastructure plan in the United States provides $ 15 billion for electric vehicle, electric bus, and mass transit infrastructure – a fraction of President Joe Biden’s earlier proposal to spend $ 174 billion to boost the electric vehicle market.
Nic Lutsey, ICCT’s program director, said in a statement, “The growth of electric vehicle manufacturing is happening where there are strong national guidelines designed to move the market forward. Hundreds of billions of dollars are on the table and the United States has not even got one made the effort. ” pull up a chair. “
Read the full study here.
