According to a recent Gartner, Inc. prediction, six million electric cars (battery-electric and plug-in hybrid) would be shipped in 2022, up from four million in 2021.
“At COP26 in November 2021, the Zero Emission Vehicle Transition Council agreed that vehicle manufacturers will commit to selling only zero emission vehicles by 2040, and earlier in leading markets, putting pressure on the automotive sector to prepare for the decarbonization in transportation. EVs are an important powertrain technology to help reduce CO2 emissions from the transportation sector,” said Jonathan Davenport, research director at Gartner. “The ongoing shortage of chips will impact the production of EVs in 2022, and while shipments of vans and trucks are currently small, their shipments will grow rapidly as commercial owners see the financial and environmental benefit of electrifying their fleets.”
The Gartner forecast predicts that electric cars will make up 95% of total EV shipments by 2022, with the remaining 5% to be split between buses, vans, and heavy trucks.
| 2021 Shipments | 2021 Growth (%) | 2022 Shipments | 2022 Growth (%) | |
| Car | 4,473,907 | 38.3 | 6,022,147 | 34.6 |
| Bus | 165,551 | 18.1 | 198,353 | 19.8 |
| Van | 86,274 | 56.1 | 126,607 | 46.8 |
| Heavy Truck | 15,171 | 41.5 | 22,663 | 49.4 |
| Total | 4,740,903 | 37.7 | 6,369,769 | 34.4 |
Due to rounding, some figures may not add up to the totals shown.
Source: Gartner (January 2022)
Gartner expects that Greater China will account for 46 percent of worldwide EV shipments in 2022, with China placing a requirement on automakers requiring EVs to account for 40 percent of all sales by 2030 and automakers creating new factories for producing electric cars. Greater China will be the global leader in EV shipments, with 2.9 million vehicles shipped in 2022. Western Europe is on track to export 1.9 million electric vehicles in 2022, placing it second in the world. North America is predicted to be the third largest area in terms of EV shipments in 2022, with 855.3 thousand EVs shipped.
“The EU’s plans to cut CO2 emissions from cars by 55% and vans by 50% by 2030 is a catalyst to the uptake of EVs in Europe,” said Davenport.
As governments across the world implement new legislation and incentives to boost EV sales, the automotive industry is expanding investment in firms that supply charging infrastructure and car battery technology to support and reinforce consumers’ and businesses’ shift to EVs. According to Gartner, the number of worldwide public EV chargers will increase from 1.6 million units in 2021 to 2.1 million units in 2022.
To encourage the shift to EVs, automakers will need to solve a number of issues, including decreasing the cost of EVs and batteries, recycling EV batteries, offering a broader choice of car models, and enhancing charging infrastructure.
“Additionally, a major issue that must be addressed is lack of fast-charging availability for home and public charging,” said Davenport. “Utility providers will need to increase their investments in smart grid infrastructure to cope with the growing consumption of electricity. Additionally, to meet climate change ambitions, countries which utilize fossil fuels to generate electricity will need to redesign their power generation to respond to the transition.”
