Dive Brief:
- A report from ABI Research indicates that electric vehicles (EVs) will exceed 20% of global mileage share by 2030.
- The report estimates that only 2% of new consumer vehicles this year will be electric, but local governments will contribute to more widespread adoption through regulatory measures such as urban emissions zones.
- The report also predicts that electric transportation will encompass mobility forms besides cars, to include bikes, scooters, shuttles, boats and in the more distant future, passenger-carrying drones.
This research supports the current electric transportation trend that many cities have embraced to a greater degree recently than in years past. Although interest in EVs experienced an initial boom in the 1990s, that waned for a variety of reasons and hasn’t regained steam until the past few years. Dozens of transit agencies across the country — including Dallas, St. Louis, San Francisco and Washington, DC — have been leading the EV trend by replacing diesel or natural gas buses with electric, with a recent study predicting that 80% of municipal bus fleets around the world would transition to electric by 2040.
Urban emissions zones are catching on in Europe and the study’s researchers believe they soon will gain popularity in the United States as well. The goal of the zones is to ban older, diesel- and gasoline-powered vehicles and ultimately create “zero emissions zones” and city centers where only electric-powered vehicles are allowed to operate.
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