全球电动车销量再创纪录，增长重心转向新兴市场

This is Tom Roland Ree and you're listening to Switched On, the podcast brought to you by Bloomberg NEF. Electric vehicles are heading for yet another record year globally. But beneath that headline, the market is changing. Growth is slowing in China as the world's largest EV market matures. The US is moving backwards and some of the fastest adoption is now happening in emerging markets across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and beyond.

That changing geography is being driven in part by economics. China remains the only major market where electric cars are cheaper to buy than comparable combustion vehicles, while competitively priced Chinese models are helping EV sales accelerate in more price sensitive markets. In the US, meanwhile, Bloomberg NF expects EV sales to fall 19% this year following the removal of federal support. But this year's electric vehicle outlook, our annual flagship report examining the evolution of road transport through 2050, is about more than just what powers a vehicle.

Shared mobility and autonomous driving are beginning to change how vehicles are used with robo taxis traveling far greater distance than private cars and potentially reducing the number of vehicles needed to provide the same amount of mobility. It's part of a broader evolution taking place across road transport from what we drive and how we power it to how we use it. So, as the center of gravity for EV growth begins to shift, what does the next phase of the electric transport transition look like and how much could it change the way we move?

On today's show, I'm joined by Alexander O'Donovan, BNF's head of electric vehicles, and Andrew Grant, our head of intelligent mobility. And together, we review findings from the long-term electric vehicle outlook 2026. BNF clients can find this flagship report and other related electric vehicle research by heading to BNFGO on the Bloomberg terminal or bnf.com. If you'd like to learn more about how BNF approaches strategy research on the energy transition, including developments in commodity markets, trends across different sectors and the cross cutting technologies shaping the future, you can find more information on bnf.com.

And if you'd like to speak with a member of our team about becoming a client, email us at sales.bf bloomberg.net. But for now, let's take a closer look at how the next phase of electric mobility is taking shape. [music]

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Alex, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Tom.

And Andrew, welcome to the podcast.

Good to be here.

We're talking about the electric vehicle outlook today, which somewhat, you know, as a title, we always need to have something snappy. And electric vehicle outlook conveniently shortens to EVO, but it actually maybe undersells everything that's in there cuz it is about electric vehicles. It's also about, you know, Andrew's domain of intelligent mobility. So, we're gonna talk about it all, but let's start off by talking about the big picture.

I have it written down here on a piece of paper that we are heading for another record year for electric vehicle sales globally, but the market is entering a more uneven phase of growth. Firstly, can we just put that in context when we say another record year? How many years in in a row have we had record years for electric vehicles? So we began tracking EV markets back in 2014. We have sales data dating back to 2010 and trust me when I tell you every year since then is a record year.

So every year we break the previous year's records in terms of global passenger electric vehicle sales.

So So it's really not that big a news when we say it's a record year. Like it's almost like you've gone t the electric vehicle market's got tired of all the winning. Um [laughter]

I said I think this makes it the news because I I think it feels like people would like to see something going the other direction at this point like you know expect the trouble to come while instead you know every year we come out with that story of another record year on the horizon and another many record years to come.

Oh so so we're forecasting record years as far as the eye can see

on a global level. Yes.

On a global level. I mean, I I suppose that's kind of gets to the point is when every year is a record year, we have to find something new and interesting to say, there's always more to it than just the headline number. So, again, on my little piece of paper, I have it written down that sales went up 11% from 2025 in terms of like the typical records that are set. Is that a big increment or is that a relatively modest smashing of previous records?

I think it's a relatively modest smashing. So we're seeing the sort of the global growth continues every year but it's slowing down on the global level at least again. So we're moving away from those growth rates of 160% yearonear to to 11% uh that we expect to come this year. So growth is slowing down. Uh the pace of growth in various markets is also a bit uneven. But to be honest it it always has been uneven. Right?

Not all countries are not moving exactly at the same pace. They are moving at different pace. What we're seeing this year is a little bit of a change of guard possibly in who's leading uh in EV adoption, who's moving the fastest. So, previously in the past, like China was really the global leader, moving the fastest in EV adoption. Like those growth rates were quite impressive and now China is also slowing down. It's still the leading market.

Most of electric cars globally are sold in China, but China is slowing down, but it's slowing down predominantly because it's already a mature and saturated market. it's got no more growth to doing or has less room for growth.

Has less room for for growth. It's also much more susceptible to wider economic challenges than a typical say policydriven market. So that topped up with some subsidy changes in China that we've observed uh last year means that in our outlook for China for 2030 is now roughly 2.6 million unions lower um than it was last year. So China is slowing down but for good reasons I would say. And then you have the whole emerging EV market story where we see this rapid growth, those markets entering the steep part of the Scurve.

So I think the the the the leaderboard is changing but at the pace of growth, not in absolute volumes just yet.

Andrew, I want to bring you in here. We've been talking about you know electric vehicle and electric drivetrain so far and you look at intelligent mobility which on the surface is a completely different thing but actually in reality these two trends of electric vehicles and intelligent mobility are quite closely related. So can you sort of explain to us that bigger picture and you know from everything that Alex has just described what does this mean for intelligent mobility?

Well when you were talking about the kind of this is the electric vehicle outlook it's really that's our name for it. This is our road transport outlook that covers everything from small two-wheelers all the way up to large trucks. Passenger vehicles are a big portion of that and uh intelligent mobility which in our definition is shared and autonomous vehicles. They're an important component in defining how vehicles are used and what types of vehicles are actually deployed in different parts of the globe before you start actually looking at what is under the hood and what drivetrain is there.

There's certain vehicle segments that are going electric at a much faster rate. Shared vehicles in particular are electrifying quicker than what you see in the general vehicle population. They also drive further on an annual basis. So they they're used a lot more. So there's a big difference between your sales numbers, your fleet numbers, and then your electric kilometers or clean kilometers that we're seeing on the roads.

And those are all kind of transforming at at different rates. So that's why we kind of integrate these di