European governments’ electromobility plans: an assessment with a focus on infrastructure targets and vehicle estimates until 2030
Electromobility offers great potentials to the decarbonisation of the transport sector. The purpose of this study is to analyse the development of electromobility in the European Union (EU) and in the United Kingdom (UK) by 2030. The study is based on the objectives provided by the EU Member States and UK in their national implementation reports, as foreseen by the Directive 2014/94/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure. As the initial data coverage was not full, in order to produce a complete data set on registered electric vehicles and public recharging points, we estimated missing values with different statistical techniques and critical analysis of the initial data. A set of proposed indicators, namely the share of electric vehicles, the density of publicly accessible recharging points, the electric vehicles and recharging points annual growth rates and the sufficiency index, were averaged at EU27+UK level to depict the envisaged evolution of electromobility in the present decade. The results show that the objectives of the countries’ governments are overall less ambitious than the goals defined in the EU Green Deal for 2025 and in the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy for 2030. Most of the indicators vary significantly in the 2016–2030 period, often revealing an increased divergence between the development of electric vehicles and public recharging points. Two policy implications are derived: (i) the use of a combined set of indicators to assess the governments’ electromobility plans could be pursued, while the ratio of ten electric vehicles per recharging point may no longer be a useful benchmark; and (ii) measures supporting the uptake of recharging infrastructure are still needed to mitigate the divergence with electric vehicles and to meet the ambitious objectives of the EU Green Deal and Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy.
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The hidden side of electro-mobility: Modelling agents’ financial statements and their interactions with a European focus
While much attention has been given, to date, to subsidies and taxes, the literature on the topic is yet to address less visible aspects of electro-mobility. These include the interactions among players, including money exchanges, and balance sheet issues. Analysing these is needed, as it helps identify additional mechanisms that may affect electro-mobility. This paper reports a modelling exercise that applies the system dynamics method, with its focus on stock and flow variables. The resulting simulation model captures the financial statements of several macro agents. The results show that the objective of the study is met: the model remains ‘stock-flow consistent’, meaning that assets and equity and liabilities balance out. By attaining this, the model serves as a coherent framework that makes the “hidden” side of electro-mobility visible, for the first time, based on current state-of-the-art, with the implication that it facilitates the analysis of potential financial factors that may either jeopardise or be conducive to faster road electrification. We conclude that the incorporation of the financial statements of key electro-mobility agents and their interlinkages in a simulation model is both a feasible and desired property for policy-relevant models.
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Powertrain technologies and their impact on greenhouse gas emissions in key car markets
The role alternative car technologies may play in effectively tackling the problem of climate change is still highly uncertain. This paper aims at investigating possible impacts of car powertrain technologies on future energy demand and its corresponding greenhouse gas emissions until 2030. A system dynamics model covering nine car technologies in China, France, Germany, India, Japan and the United States was applied, with a focus on electric cars. Four main scenarios are constructed and sensitivity analysis undertaken. Greenhouse gas emissions from cars in the six countries are simulated to reach up to 2.6 gigatonnes in 2030 (a 13–32% increase between 2020 and 2030, depending on the scenario). The main conclusion from model-based policy analysis is that electric cars may have a positive contribution to emissions mitigation in the passenger road transport system. However, greenhouse gas emissions from cars arising from the combined effect of car manufacturing and scrappage and electricity generation processes are expected to grow more dramatically. As a result, actions that support both low-emission (re-)manufacturing and clean electricity generation are needed. These results complement accurate but static life cycle assessments and open the discussion for dynamic model assumptions.
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Interlinking major markets to explore electric car uptake
The purpose of this research is to investigate policy synergies and market interdependencies in the field of alternative powertrain technologies. The methodology is based on a simulation model grounded on system dynamics, a method that focuses on the structure (particularly feedback processes) and behavior over time of complex systems. The impacts of four policy measures on the uptake of electric cars in six countries (China, France, Germany, India, Japan and the United States), each segmented in five consumer groups, are explored. We observe that the additive impact of individual policies is lower than the impact of a corresponding policy package and that the impact of a policy package is greater if pursued by countries jointly. The implications of these findings are that the uptake of electric powertrains may depend not only on the combined impact of country-specific policy measures but also on the joint effect of policies in key electric car markets. The originality of this research arises from the endogenization of the electric car battery price evolution by explicitly modeling policy packages in six major car markets and interlinking them.
Available here.