Report

Electric Vehicles in 2013: a Progress Report

July 30, 2014

This is the second part of T&E’s annual Cars and CO2 report that examines developments in new car CO2 emissions. This part is focused on electric cars.Analysis of provisional cars sales data in 2013 supplied by the European Environment Agency shows the market for electric vehicles (EVs) continues to grow strongly from a low base. Sales have approximately doubled annually since production vehicles were first marketed in 2010. In 2013, nearly 50,000 plug-in vehicles were sold in the EU representing around 0.4% of all cars.

The report highlights the importance of establishing new car emissions standards for 2025 and 2030 to ensure investment in low-carbon vehicles technologies is maintained. It warns that proposals by German carmakers to include transport in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) would lead to higher transport emissions, more oil imports and less innovation in low carbon vehicle technologies because the ETS wouldn’t require emissions reductions in the transport sector.

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