BDO: Electric vehicle sales in Israel will double this year to 19,000

Electric vehicle sales in Israel will double this year to 19,000, BDO chief economist Chen Herzog predicts in a report reviewing their penetration into Israel, the forecast for the coming years and the state of sales, infrastructure and regulation around the world. In the first five months of the year, Israel's roads 8,650 electric and rechargeable vehicles and the trend is expected to intensify in the coming months.
Herzog notes that 2021 is expected to be a turning point in electric vehicle sales in Israel, which will capture a market share of 5.5% of all new vehicle sales. Despite the growth, the Israeli market is still lagging behind European countries in this field, where the market share is three times larger and this year reached 15% of all vehicles. At the same time, global experience shows that crossing the 5% market share we reached this month is a turning point in the penetration of electric vehicles from which there has been a sharp jump in sales. For example, in the Netherlands it took the market two years to grow from a 5% market share to a 25% market share in 2020 and in Sweden there was growth within three years from 5% to 32%.
Based on the growth rate, BDO estimates that in 2025 the number of electric and rechargeable vehicles in Israel will reach 215,000. According to Herzog, the fact that Israel lags behind European countries in the penetration of electric vehicles is a failure of national policy. The problem is that the national infrastructure is not yet prepared to deal with the electric vehicle revolution while the planning of the electricity sector in Israel is still carried out according to a forecast recently updated in 2018, which does not include the impact of electric vehicles on electricity demand. The result is a lack of national infrastructure planning.
The next government's challenge is to formulate a policy to remove barriers and encourage the entry of electric vehicles, in order to bring Israel to change its position from a country lagging behind in implementing the electric vehicle revolution to a country leading it. Israel, as a small and crowded country, where electricity prices are cheap and fuel prices are expensive, has the advantage of leading the electric vehicle revolution. The benefit to the national economy of the electric vehicle stems from a combination of environmental and economic benefits. The electric vehicle is both green and blue-and-white, because the sources of electricity production in Israel are domestic production - gas and renewable energies, while the energy source for gasoline vehicles is imported oil.
To succeed in the fight against the climate crisis and the transition to a low-carbon economy, renewable energies are not enough. The field of transportation is a key component in pollutant emissions in Israel, and must therefore occupy a central place in the policy of reducing emissions, say the BDO.