今年全球电动汽车销量可能下降43%

据油价网2020年4月16日报道，到目前为止，每个人都应该很清楚：疫情大流行的后果正在摧毁能源和运输行业，与爆发疫情之前雄心勃勃的计划相比，现在电动汽车（EV）的未来看起来有些严峻。

伍德麦肯兹在最近发表的一份分析报告中说，去年全球EV的销量超过了220万辆，今年可能会下降43%。原因是：为应对疫情和迫在眉睫的经济衰退而实施的旅行禁令抑制了人们的购买欲望，尤其是购买昂贵的东西，比如一辆新车。伍德麦肯兹分析师还指出，经济形势也可能增加人们对采用新技术的反感。

欧洲的EV销量一直在强劲增长，1月份同比增长了121%。然后，疫情袭击了欧洲，并给这种增幅致命一击。

如今，3个月过去了，作为全球第二大EV市场的欧洲，却在经历着疫情的阵痛，而欧洲大陆的经济前景更是糟糕透顶。

旅行禁令、国家封锁、成千上万的受害者、供应链中断以及内部政治分歧正在撼动欧盟。因此，彭博社日前对经济学家进行的调查显示，今年上半年欧元区经济可能会收缩10%以上。仅在第二季度，欧元区经济就将下滑8.3%。尽管这并不像对美国经济最糟糕的预测那么严重，但对EV市场而言，这仍是一次毁灭性的冲击。

就连通常表现强劲、不属于欧元区的挪威经济，今年也将疫情而出现收缩。挪威是欧洲最强劲的EV市场，这对汽车行业来说是一个坏消息。

另外一个坏消息是，由于疫情，欧洲另一个重要EV市场的英国可能会看到其今年国内生产总值缩水高达35%。德国经济仅在今年第二季度预计就将收缩9.8%，而且这个经济收缩国家的名单还在扩大。

与此同时，汽车制造商正在关闭工厂，欧洲各国政府也承诺不会让任何企业因为危机而倒闭。在美国，通用汽车公司时下正在生产口罩，以解决美国国内危机期间的口罩短缺问题。汽车工业现在几乎和其他所有行业一样一团糟。

伍德麦肯兹的拉姆·钱德拉塞卡兰和加文·蒙哥马利在他们的分析报告中写道，然而，现在有一线希望：“汽车制造商没有改变他们的碳中性目标，而我们也不指望政府推迟或取消逐步淘汰内燃机汽车的政策。尽管人们很容易认为油价暴跌对EV的采用是个坏消息，但实际上，购买价格、充电基础设施和现有车型对销量的影响要大得多。”

面对二战以来最严重的经济衰退，欧洲能否坚持EV的优先发展方向，继续对EV进行补贴，甚至增加补贴，以使受经济衰退打击的民众更能负担得起EV?美国可以吗?这只是使EV不久的未来变得有些黑暗的问题之一。

EV革命需要钱；就是这么简单。开发更便宜但可靠的型号的EV需要付出高昂的代价。因此建立一个足够密集的充电站网络也是如此。汽车制造商已经在他们的EV项目上花费了数十亿美元，并准备进行大规模的投入。现在，这些投入很可能会失败，特别是如果危机持续到今年上半年结束，这不是不可能的。

不过，从长远来看，EV无疑会继续存在。他们只是需要更长的时间来替换内燃机汽车。

伍德麦肯兹分析师写道：“疫情的全面影响还有待观察。这句可怕的话很适合写恐怖小说。事实上，我们迄今还没有看到疫情对世界经济的伤害到底有多大，我们只能希望，它还没有糟糕到让化石燃料向电力的转变倒退几年。”

李峻 编译自 油价网

原文如下：

EV Sales Could Crash By 43% This Year

By now, it should be clear to everyone: the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic is killing both the energy and transportation industries, and now the future of EVs is looking somewhat grim compared to ambitious pre-COVID-19 plans.

Sales of electric vehicles, which in 2019 topped 2.2 million, could plunge 43% this year, Wood Mackenzie said in a recent report. The reason: the travel bans in response to the coronavirus and a looming recession, which has dampened people's appetite for new purchases, especially costly ones such as a new car. The economic situation, the Wood Mac analysts also noted, is also likely to increase people's aversion to new technology adoption.

EV sales in Europe had been on an impressive upswing, up by 121% on the year in January. Then, coronavirus struck and rained on this parade.

Now, three months later, Europe, the second biggest market for electric cars, is in the throes of the coronavirus and the outlook for the continent's economies is nothing short of horrible.

Travel bans, national lockdowns, tens of thousands of victims, disruptions across supply chains, and internal political divisions are shaking the EU. As a result, the eurozone economy could shrink by more than 10% in the first half of the year, a survey among economists made by Bloomberg has suggested. In the second quarter alone, the euro area is set for a slump of 8.3%. While that’s not as bad as the worst predictions for the US economy, it is still a devastating shock for the EV market.

Even Norway's economy, normally strong and outside the eurozone, is set for a contraction this year as a result of the pandemic. And Norway is the strongest EV market in Europe, so that's bad news for the industry.

In further bad news, the UK, another big EV market, could see its GDP shrink by as much as 35% because of the pandemic. Germany's economy is expected to book a 9.8% contraction in the second quarter of the year alone, and the list is expanding.

Meanwhile, carmakers are shutting down factories, and European governments are promising not to let any businesses fail as a result of the crisis. In the US, GM is producing face masks to address a shortage amid the crisis. The car industry is in the same shambles as almost every other industry right now.

Yet there is a silver-ish lining: "Automakers haven't changed their carbon-neutral goals and we don't expect governments to defer or cancel policies designed to phase out internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles," Wood Mac's Ram Chandrasekaran and Gavin Montgomery wrote in their report. "And while it's tempting to think that the oil price crash is bad news for EV adoption, in reality, the purchase price, charging infrastructure and available models currently have a much greater impact on sales."

With the worst recession since the Second World War, could Europe stick to its EV priorities and continue subsidizing them, even increasing the subsidies in order to make them more affordable for a recession-stricken population? Could the United States? This is just one of the questions rendering the immediate future of EVs somewhat murky.

The EV revolution needs money; it's as simple as that. Developing cheaper but reliable models comes with a significant price tag. So does building a dense enough network of charging points. Automakers have already spent billions on their EV programs, and were preparing for major launches. Now, these could well flop, especially if the crisis drags on beyond the end of the first half of the year, which is not out of the realm of possibility.

Still, over the long term, EVs will undoubtedly survive. It will just take them a bit longer to replace internal combustion engines.

"The full impact of the pandemic remains to be seen," the Wood Mac analysts wrote. This is a scary line fit for a horror novel. Indeed, we have yet to see exactly how much the pandemic has hurt the world's economies and can only hope that it's not bad enough to set back the shift from fossil fuels to electricity by years.