Number of Electric Vehicles on Roads Reaches Three Million: IEA (reuters.com)

The number of electric vehicles on roads worldwide rose to a record high of 3.1 million in 2017, but more research, policies and incentives are needed to drive further uptake, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. From a report: The number of electric cars, including battery-electric, plug-in hybrid electric and fuel cell electric passenger light-duty vehicles, increased by 57 percent compared with 2016, the IEA said in a report. China accounted for 40 percent of the global total last year. Research and development, policy support, charging infrastructure investment and production improvements are resulting in lower battery costs and higher electric vehicle (EV) uptake.

Comments

Yep, dominated by China

[LynnwoodRooster]

And 99% of those Chinese EVs have a range less than 50 km. Now, let's look at the ~1.3 BILLION ICE vehicles on the road. Electric is 0%, rounded to the nearest 0.5%...

I'm still waiting.

[Rick Schumann]

I've said it before: produce an affordable plug-in electric that recharges overnight (or alternately hydrogen fuel cell) light pickup truck with at least a 300 mile range, and I'll be all over it. Until then I'm not interested in any tiny subcompact unibody two-door sedans with no cargo carrying capability, short range, takes all day to recharge, costs in excess of $50000, and you can't even purchase it outright, you have to lease it.

Re:Gas Policies and incentives

[LynnwoodRooster]

if you want to look at real subsidies (and not some pie-in-the-sky "let's pin anything we don't like on evil oil and ignore all the good it does!"), solar and wind vastly outstrip fossil fuels in absolute dollars. And when you scale by actual generation, it's skewed orders of magnitude in favor of solar and wind.

Re:The Windows Phone of cars

[Oswald McWeany]

CO2 is not a pollutant.

move yourself to an airtight room with only Co2 then.

Move yourself to a room with 100% pure oxygen.

Anything at too high a level is a pollutant. CO2 is already at levels that is harmful for our planet so, yes, is a pollutant.

CO2 is toxic at much lower levels than Oxygen. You can breathe pure oxygen for several days before you start experiencing any problems. CO2 at slightly elevated levels can have an almost immediate effect. Not to mention, CO2 causes global warming, perhaps the biggest problem facing our planet, and increased levels cause ocean acidification which is primarily responsible for almost all the world's reefs to have die-backs.

CO2 is essential for life, but we already have too much of it in the atmosphere.

Re:I prefer the 'pie in sky'

[LynnwoodRooster]

OK, let's discuss ALL costs. Do we also include the costs of backup generation/capacity for renewables and assign to them the "externalized" costs that are bandied about as to cost $5 trillion? Because suddenly you'd have about 80% of the externalities assigned to older power generation also being applied to renewables.