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Electric vehicle (EV) sales have been rapidly growing around the world, spurred by technology advances and policy actions. This study leverages rich data on all individual new light-duty vehicles sold in the United States from 2014 to 2020. We examine how EV attributes, prices, and sales have evolved, exploring substantial heterogeneity across geography, vehicle class, price range, and demographics. We use a matching analysis to compare EVs to similar conventional vehicles to find that EVs have been surprisingly competitive in very recent years. This suggests that constrained supply is an important determinant of the low overall EV market share.
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The End of Neutrality? Fuel Standards, Technology Neutrality, and Stimulating the EV Market
Widespread electrification of the transportation sector is a key component of most strategies for deep decarbonization of the U.S. economy. While the acceptance of EVs has grown dramat- ically over the last decade, much of this growth has been spurred by substantial support from public funds and other related policies. Major electrification on the time scales supported in many climate policy plans will require substantial investment spurred by policy. In this paper we discuss the policy options for expanding the EV market. Our particular focus is on the potential role that a Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) can play in supporting electrification. Standards like the LCFS are typically positioned as “technology neutral”, and the LCFS itself relies upon a dense set of calculations and assumptions to rate a wide variety of fuels based upon their life-cycle carbon intensity (CI). The LCFS in California is currently directing hun- dreds of millions of dollars to the EV market in California. However, it is likely that for a LCFS to support the kinds of investments on a magnitude likely necessary to reach electrification goals, it may have to be altered in such fundamental ways as to no longer really function as a technology-neutral fuel standard.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2049929
- PAR ID:
- 10553377
- Publisher / Repository:
- International Association for Energy Economics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2160-5882
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Electric vehicles (EVs) require substantially more copper and other metals than conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. For example, manufacture of an ICE automobile requires 24 kg copper whereas manufacture of an EV requires 60 kg. Many have expressed concern that the lack of critical mineral resources may not allow full electrification of the global vehicle transportation fleet, and the vehicle electrification resource demand is just a small part of that needed for the transition. By displaying both demand and mine production in full historical context we show that copper resources are available, but 100% manufacture of EVs by 2035 requires unprecedented rates of mine production. The 100% EV target not only requires significant extra copper for battery manufacture, but also more copper for grid upgrades to support charging, while hybrid electric vehicles do not require extra grid capacity. Under today’s policy settings for copper mining, it is highly unlikely that there will be sufficient additional new mines to achieve 100% EV by 2035. Policymakers might consider changing the vehicle electrification goal from 100% EV to 100% hybrid manufacture by 2035. This would allow for future output of existing and new copper mines to be used for the developing world to catch up with the developed world in electrification. Life cycle emissions for battery electric vehicles compared with hybrid electric vehicles are comparable with each other. Mining must be recognized as essential, and exploration and responsible copper mine development strongly encouraged.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.5547/2160-5890.13.1.jbus
