Electric vehicles on path to triple

The number of electric vehicles on the road worldwide is set to triple by the end of the decade.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that, given current policies around the world, 13 million electric vehicles will be on the road in 2020, compared with 3.7 million just last year.

Sales could increase 24 percent year-over-year through 2030.

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“The policy-driven growth in [electric vehicle] sales underpins economies of scale and fosters technology development which reduces battery pack costs, increases opportunities to cut the purchase price of electric [vehicles] and to improve their performance,” the organization said Wednesday in its comprehensive report on the electric vehicle market and its future internationally.

The 3.7 million electric vehicles on the road last year, a figure that includes plug-in hybrid vehicles but excludes two- or three-wheelers, represents a 54 percent increase over 2016, IEA said.

About half of the electric vehicles sold in 2017, or 580,000, were in China. That country saw a 72 percent increase in sales.

The world’s electric vehicle fleet accounts for 54 terawatt-hours of electricity demand, or about the demand of Greece.

But their use avoided the equivalent of 29.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide of greenhouse gas emissions, compared with gasoline or diesel cars.