Transition to zero-carbon cars, trucks and buses

Mandating that automakers sell a specific percentage of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) or generate a specific number of ZEV "credits" is a useful supply-side method of accelerating electric vehicle (EV) uptake.

The first ZEV mandate was adopted in California in 1990, well before ZEVs were readily available, with the intention of spurring innovation and ZEV manufacturing. It did not manage to spur the necessary cost and performance improvements in ZEVs during the initial phase and was subsequently weakened considerably, but it has seen greater success in recent years.

A Chinese version of this policy was implemented in 2018 — a point in time when federal purchase subsidies were starting to be rolled back, and after a robust local ZEV manufacturing industry had already been established. In the European Union, a voluntary scheme to encourage automakers to produce ZEVs was established in 2021 to complement and strengthen its updated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions standards.

As of 2022, 46 countries and 1 region have ZEV sales mandates.

A key precondition for the widespread deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) is a large and reliable charging infrastructure network. Although most EV charging takes place at home, publicly available charging infrastructure is necessary for longer distance travel.

The total number of public charging stations has increased substantially over the past decade, with the number of EV chargers more than quadrupling between 2020 and 2024 (1.3 million to 5.4 million).

Almost two-thirds of all installed chargers are found in China. 15% are in the European Union, 8% are in South Korea, and 3% are in the United States.

Particularly for longer distances, EV drivers want fast chargers that can deliver a charge of 80% or more power in less than 30 minutes. The share of fast chargers has been increasing more rapidly than that of regular chargers and reached 37% of all chargers in 2024, up from just 7% in 2017.

In total, there were around 2 million fast, and nearly 3.4 million slow, publicly available charging points in the world in 2024, making up 5.4 million in total.

The clean energy transition is expected to bring a massive increase in the use and mining of critical minerals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, zinc and rare earths. It is estimated that under a net-zero scenario, the market for critical minerals will need to triple from 2023 to 2030.

Human rights violations related to mining projects in general and critical mineral mining in particular are well documented.

The Transitions Minerals Tracker surveys publicly reported allegations of human rights abuses in the mining of lithium, copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese, bauxite and nickel. It records allegations against 65 indicators grouped in six categories: environmental impacts, impacts on the local community (including attacks against civil society organizations), impacts on workers, governance and transparency, security issues and conflict zones, and issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The database noted just 10 allegations in 2010, but that number has grown as mining for critical minerals has increased. There were 91 recorded allegations in 2023.

The number of allegations of human rights violations in critical mineral extraction is one indicator of equity during the energy transition. Similar indicators focusing on one or more clean energy technologies also exist, but this is considered a better proxy because critical minerals are required for most clean energy technologies.

As the energy transition unfolds, progress on this indicator will be measured by a decreasing number of new allegations of human rights violations.

The sales of electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles need to grow at unprecedented speeds in this decade, maintaining strong adoption rates through to the mid-century. Currently, the share of electric vehicles (EVs) in global medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales stands at only 2.7%, which needs to reach up to 30% by 2030 and nearly 100% by 2050.

The three main factors that will influence the transition to EVs are: (1) the cost to own and operate medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles, (2) the availability of electric trucks, and (3) the charging network that will enable business operations to continue without major disruption or change. The total cost of owning and operating an electric heavy truck is approaching parity with fossil fueled counterparts. In Europe, for example, electric trucks should be as cheap to own and operate as diesel trucks by 2026. Electric and fuel cell trucks are becoming much more available–from 2021 to 2023, the number of models available increased from 255 to 418. Finally, the charging network continues to grow at significant rates, although the larger batteries in electric trucks require charging stations specifically designed for heavy-duty vehicles.

To realize change at the scale necessary, the average cost of medium- and heavy-duty EVs will need to fall dramatically this decade. Costs will be driven down through increased deployment and technology innovation, which can be enabled by policies and regulations increasing sales. There is no globally consistent and freely available data covering the mean price of EVs. However, the costs of battery packs fell globally from $1,220/kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2010 to $132/kWh in 2021. Prices went up in 2022 for the first time in over a decade due to a supply crunch in necessary components, but have already begun to decline again in 2023.