Despite a recent slowdown in US sales, global forecasts for electric vehicles remain bullish. Countries across North America, Europe, and Asia are expanding charger networks and offering EV subsidies; global EV sales are projected to nearly triple by 2030, reaching 40 million vehicles annually.
The incipient wave of EV purchases raises a question: What will happen to the millions of gas-powered cars whose owners no longer want them?
The likely answer: Rather than scrapping used gas vehicles or selling them domestically, rich nations will dispatch them to developing countries where limited incomes and low levels of car ownership have created eager buyers for even older, substandard models.
An influx of used gas cars would be a welcome development for those in the Global South who aspire to automobile ownership, a luxury that many in affluent countries take for granted. But it would undermine efforts to mitigate climate change, since shifting gas guzzlers from one country to another doesn’t lower global emissions. For developing countries themselves, a sharp increase in car ownership could amplify calls to build auto-reliant infrastructure, making it harder to construct the dense neighborhoods and transit networks that can foster more sustainable growth. And since these imported used cars would be fueled by gasoline, air quality would further decline in cities that are already choked with smog.
Isn’t this always the case, though? What about EVs changes what cars are sent to developing countries?
If the world is buying more cars and therefore more cars are being sent to developing countries, how does the new car being an EV change what cars or how many cars are sent? Before EVs many people still bought new cars every 3 to 5 years, and the old cars got sold to someone. It doesn’t matter who bought them, since the gas was still being burned. Now, the same thing is true but the new car might be an EV, and the old car might also be an EV (I’ve traded in 2 full EVs already for new cars).
In very small numbers. Car recycling/scrapping is a huge industry in developed nations. One that the big manufacturers support for a couple reasons. Main one being to maintain artificial price flooring. If used cars are expensive and harder to come by, people give in and buy new. The manufacturers knew this. But it didn’t occur for them to actively engage in such practices until Cash for Clunkers happened in the US.
Also, low income countries already get their cars from manufacturers people in western nations have never heard of. China, India, and even Iran export new cars to these nations. Options that would be easier to obtain and maintain than something like a 20 year old GM SUV never sold directly in that market.
The author’s guess at potential future concerns doesn’t seem reflective of reality around car ownership economics. Plus China is already getting new EVs to some of these markets at artificially low costs.