New figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) have shown that global spending on electric vehicles (EVs) and charging infrastructure surged by 77% to $US273 billion in 2021 and based on current trends are likely to surpass spending on renewable energy.
BNEF highlighted this week figures from its latest Energy Transition Investment Trends report showing that, since 2014, investments in the electrified transport sector have grown by a compound annual rate of around 48%, dramatically narrowing the gap with spending on renewable energy.
Unsurprisingly, China once again regained its position as the dominant force for EV spending in 2021, having fallen behind Europe in 2020 due in large part to the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
China more than doubled its previous EV spending from 2020 to $US110 billion in 2021, backed by the sale of passenger EVs reaching 3.3 million units.
United States spending on EVs increased by 88% to $US35 billion as sales of passenger EVs benefited from a more than twofold increase to around 652,000.
Meanwhile, Germany was the third leading spender on electrified transport with $US32 billion, followed by the UK with $US17 billion and France with $US14 billion.
Bloomberg’s findings showed that the bulk of spending on electrified transport was for passenger EVs which has grown 14-fold over the past eight years, and which saw sales jump by almost 90% in 2021 to $US244 billion.
However, unfortunately, the same growth trajectory cannot be applied to other electrified transport sectors, with electric buses remaining a distant second with flat investment of around $US13 billion – the majority of which was located in China.
Commercial electric vehicles were a long way further back with investment of only $US6.7 billion in 2021, but this nevertheless represents an increase of 36% in 2021.
Necessary investing on charging infrastructure remained relatively low, with $US5.5 billion spent on public charging infrastructure and only $US3.7 billion on home charging. Within this, however, ultra-fast charging drove investment in 2021, tripling year-on-year and now accounting for 27% of all installations, up from 10% in 2020.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.