BloombergNEF (BNEF), the business news network’s research arm, recently published its latest Zero-Emission Vehicles Factbook wherein it stated that the global demand for oil in the transport sector has reached around 42.3 million barrels per day this year. This is a bit higher than the amount reported in December of last year.
This is despite the global push towards mainstream electric vehicle (EV) use. Indeed, the report noted that EVs were not the primary reason why some nations posted a slight reduction in their use of fossil fuels.BNEF estimates that there has only been a 2% reduction in emissions when it comes to the transportation sector globally.
And Now, The Good News…
To be fair, however, the growing use of both EVs and hybrid or fuel-cell vehicles has led to an increase in avoided oil consumption by around two and a half times since 2015. If avoided consumption only came to around 720,000 barrels of oil back then, it’s now nearly at 1.8 million barrels as of this year. This is essentially 4.1% of the total transportation sector demand.
The use of electric bicycles, tricycles, or trishaws throughout Asia enabled the continent’s transport sector to avoid the use of up to 60% of its total fossil fuel demand. The rapid adoption of EVs in China and India, especially for commercial fleet runners, is seen as one of the key factors that led to this.
Likewise, the use of EVs in the mass transport sector – either instead of or supplemental to conventional buses – has further reduced the use of fossil fuels, making up 23% of avoided oil demand.
In the long run, BNEF hopes that EVs will further reduce the amount of net carbon emissions by around 112 million metric tons per annum. However, this may still take several years before becoming a reality.
