We’re living in transitional times. The age of the internal combustion-engined passenger and commercial vehicle is drawing to a close, after over a century of planetary domination. Some governments are now announcing that they will no longer accept ICE vehicle sales after a certain date and automakers are in turn announcing when they will phase out fuel-burning vehicles from their lineups.

The United Kingdom, for instance, has vowed to ban the sale of any and all ICE vehicles after 2030 and like it are thirteen additional countries (mostly in Europe). They have not all agreed on a specific year (or on what exact they're going to ban) but the year seems to usually be 2030 or 2035, or in some cases 2040.

Automakers are following suit and, for instance, Audi has announced that it will not add any new ICE vehicles to its range after 2026 - that’s just five years from now. After that year, Audi will only add new EVs to its range and after 2033, it says it will no longer offer any kind of gasoline or diesel vehicle.

However, it is worth taking into account the fact that not all automakers and not all governments are on-board with this. This leads us to believe that even though in the year 2030, the kinds of cars that you will be able to buy will be quite different compared to today, we don’t think EVs will overtake ICE vehicles globally in terms of sales - we would like that to be the case, but it seems like a bit of a stretch at the moment.

Yet according to Ernst & Young LLP (EY), EVs will become more popular than ICE vehicles by 2033, around five years earlier than most other estimates - this prediction was provided by an AI-powered forecasting tool. This only applies to the US, Europe and China, though, and the consultancy firm also expects ICE sales to drop to under 1 percent by the year 2045.

Referring strictly to the United States, EY’s global advanced manufacturing and mobility leader, Randy Miller, believes that

The regulatory environment from the Biden administration we view as a big contributor, because he has ambitious targets. That impact in the Americas will have a supercharging effect.

Miller went on to say that the new crop of even more attractive EVs that are just around the corner will further accentuate the trend

Many more models that are much more appealing are coming out. You factor that with the incentives, and those are the raw ingredients that are driving this more optimistic view. The view from the millennials that we’re seeing is clearly more inclination to want to buy EVs.

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