There will be around 85 million electric vehicles on the roads by the end of next year, including cars, buses, vans, and heavy trucks, according to the analyst firm Gartner, which has just put out a fresh forecast. It splits EVs into two groups: battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).
By the end of 2025, 62 million EVs will be BEVs, up 35% from this year, and PHEVs will reach 23 million units in 2025, up 28% from this year. Here"s a breakdown of the "installed base" per type of car per year:
| 2023 Installed Base | 2024 Installed Base | 2025 Installed Base | |
| BEV | 32,628,884 | 45,872,824 | 61,860,183 |
| PHEV | 13,402,907 | 18,159,560 | 23,283,006 |
| Total | 46,031,791 | 64,032,383 | 85,143,189 |
China is sometimes pointed out as an example of a massive emitter. While it is a massive emitter, ownership of EVs also dwarfs the rest of the world"s combined install base, and this is going to continue through 2025 and is likely for the next decade, Gartner expects.
Thankfully, Gartner says that demand for EVs will steadily grow in Europe and North America. In 2024, these EVs will make up 36% of the global installed base. By 2025, Gartner predicts that there will be 49 million EVs on Chinese roads, 20.6 million EVs on European roads, and 10.4 million EVs on North American roads.
One of the biggest concerns about EVs is the situation with the batteries. Things will improve in this respect by 2030. Gartner expects that automakers will enable the recycling of 95% of batteries from EVs to reduce the risk of raw material shortages. Commenting on this, Jonathan Davenport, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, said:
"A robust recycling effort to take advantage of materials in spent batteries and scrap from the manufacturing production process, which, together with EU efforts to mandate battery recycling, could reduce the need for more mineral excavation. Because concentrations of rare metals in batteries are higher than in natural ores, spent batteries can be seen as highly enriched ore. If recovered at large scale, the spent batteries could support the overall commercial viability of EVs by bringing battery prices down. There would be the additional benefit of batteries not ending up being disposed of in unethical manners or put into landfill sites."
The figures published by Gartner probably take into account the effects of tariffs against Chinese vehicles will have on the uptake of EVs in North America and Europe.
Proponents of tariffs believe that they"re needed to give domestic automakers a chance to compete against Chinese manufacturers, which have received subsidies from the Chinese government. These tariffs, however, will mean higher costs are passed onto consumers, slowing the adoption of EVs.
Other ways that governments could have made the playing field level, without making consumers pay more, include reducing regulations so that automakers can lower their costs, encouraging innovation through research and development to make domestic cars more appealing, supporting startups with a more favorable environment to increase domestic competition, and lowering taxes on domestic automakers to free up capital for investment in new tech and production methods.
Source: Gartner