EV sales to gain pace

A recent report from Navigant Research, a research and consultancy firm based in Colorado, USA, has predicted that worldwide sales of electric commercial vehicles will increase from 16,000 last year to 160,000 annually by 2023.

Titled Electric Drive Trucks and Buses, the report analyses the global market for all-electric trucks and buses, segmented by country, drivetrain and fuel source.

The commercial vehicle world has lagged behind passenger cars in terms of all-electric power due to range constraints and the sheer size and weight of the battery packs required to power large and heavy vehicles. However, advances have been made in hybrid vehicles in particular in recent years, while all-electric buses have also been making gains.

As detailed in a recent trucksales.com.au news article, battery and EV specialist BYD recently unveiled its first all-electric coach at the 2015 United Motorcoach Association Expo in New Orleans, USA. Click here to read that story.

The Navigant Research report found that while the proportion of electric commercial vehicles compared to those with traditional power trains is expected to remain low, sales will increase substantially over the next eight years, particularly in Japan.

"Overall, we expect diesel hybrid drive to remain the most popular of the electrically assisted medium- and heavy-duty vehicle powertrains for the whole of the forecast period," says David Alexander, senior research analyst with Navigant Research.

"Battery-electric commercial vehicles will also see growth in demand within urban fleets that average low daily mileage."

The report suggests that global penetration of electric trucks and buses will grow from 0.4 per cent of the overall commercial vehicle market to 2.9 per cent in 2023, while that figure will increase in countries with dense urban centres and where governments are vigorously pursuing emissions reductions targets. In Japan, for example, the report predicts that sales penetration of electric commercial vehicles to reach 21.2 per cent of the overall market by 2023.

The report breaks down the commercial electric-drive market into three segments: hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), with the first two also segmented by diesel or petrol fuel sources.

A free executive summary of the report is available from the Navigant Research website.