Rosneft head says end of boom for electric cars in the West

Demand for electric cars is decreasing in the West, the boom of interest in them is coming to an end. This was stated by Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, at the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum on November 5. According to him, in order for the West to achieve its carbon goals by 2050, the global fleet of electric cars should grow more than 30 times - from 30 million to 1 billion.

Now, Sechin said, the number of electric cars in the world is about 3% of the level needed by 2050. At the same time, there are 1.5 billion cars with internal combustion engine.

"It is clear that the boom for electric cars in the West is coming to an end: due to lack of demand, leading manufacturers are forced to sell at a loss to themselves, and in the US the cost of a used electric car has dropped by 25% in less than two years," TASS quoted the top executive as saying on December 5.

The reason for this is the infrastructure that is not sufficiently developed for electric cars, Sechin explained. Additional difficulties will be created by the conversion to electricity of cargo, air and water transportation. To achieve the goals of energy transition by 2050, the number of electric trucks will have to grow more than 100 times, up to more than 40 million, he said.

The day before, it was reported that the Kaliningrad plant Avtotor will start production of a small electric car in the II-III quarters of 2025. The first pre-production copies will be produced by the end of 2024 on the basis of the Moscow Polytechnic.

October 23, it became known that in early fall the best-selling electric car Tesla Model Y became the bestseller of the European car market, for a month in the EU countries were sold almost 28.9 thousand of these cars. Compared to the first month of last fall, demand for Model Y decreased by 1%.