Electric Vehicles, Charging and Transport Electrification

Electric vehicles moved from a niche to about one in four new cars sold worldwide in a decade: more than 20 million electric cars were sold in 2025, roughly a fifth more than in 2024, and the International Energy Agency projected ~23 million (~28% of sales) for 2026 (IEA, Global EV Outlook 2026, May 2026). The growth is overwhelmingly Chinese. China made nearly three-quarters of the world's electric cars in 2025, Chinese carmakers accounted for about 60% of global electric-car sales, and a domestic price war led by BYD pushed battery-electric cars below the price of comparable petrol cars in China while crushing the margins of everyone else (IEA; company reports). The United States went the other way: the federal $7,500 purchase credit ended for vehicles acquired after 30 Sep 2025 under the July 2025 budget law, EV sales spiked to more than 10% of new cars in the third quarter of 2025 and then fell to ~6.5% in the third quarter of 2026 (Kelley Blue Book and Electrek estimates, reported), with Tesla holding about half of the shrunken market. Europe sits between, with tightening CO2 rules, tariffs on Chinese EVs from October 2024 and a weak home industry. For the energy business, EVs matter in four ways: as the largest new source of battery demand (see 08), as the main threat to oil demand growth, as a new electricity load that can be managed or can strain distribution grids, and as a charging business that has proved much harder to make profitable than selling cars. This section covers EV cost curves and adoption by market, China's price war, the US credit changes of 2025, the economics of charging and why utilisation is everything, the NACS connector shift, battery swapping a decade after Better Place, fleets, trucks, buses and two-wheelers, the grid and oil-demand effects, and emerging markets.