Asia-Pacific Electric Car Market Overview
The Asia-Pacific electric car market is dominated by China with Japan being a distant second. This is followed by South Korea and India. The overall share of electric cars in the total car sales in Asia-Pacific region is negligible. Small cars account for a significant share of electric cars market in Asia-Pacific due to low prices of these cars and cost sensitive buying behaviour of customers in this region. The electric car market in Asia-Pacific is expected to show a significant growth over the next decade driven by government support, rising income levels and increasing environmental awareness. Current high price of electric car, underdeveloped infrastructure and uncertain political environment are some of the challenges for this market.
Drivers
Rising environmental awareness and government support are expected to drive the Asia-Pacific electric cars market. Economies in this region are reducing their dependence on costly fossil fuel by promoting electric cars. For instance, India plans to replace all cars by electric ones by 2030. China is offering considerable subsidy on electric cars depending upon the battery size. Rising environmental awareness among people is also benefiting the sales of these cars in Asia-Pacific.
Rising income levels and increasing urbanisation in the emerging economies in Asia-Pacific is a strong growth driver for the electric car market. In emerging economies such as India and China, the car penetration is still less compared to the developed countries. Rising income levels and aspirations to own a car would open opportunities for electric car companies in these countries. The electric car market growth in Asia-Pacific would be faster than North America and Europe, as companies would not have to wait for the conventional cars to be replaced by the electric ones. Due to current low penetration of cars in Asia-Pacific, many first-time owners of a car would opt for an electric car.
Challenges
A typical car customer in major economies, such as India and China, is highly cost sensitive. Even though the running cost of an electric car is low (6kms per 1KWh), it is the high battery cost, which increases the upfront or showroom price of electric car, making owning expensive for an average customer. High upfront cost of an electric cars could slow down its sales in the region. However, declining prices of lithium-ion batteries over the last few years is a positive sign for the Asia-Pacific electric car market.
Underdeveloped ecosystem for electric cars, including domestic battery manufacturers and charging points, could hamper the sales of electric cars. While China and Japan had 150,000 and 40,000 charging stations respectively, other countries in the region is far behind as far as charging stations are concerned. Moreover, most battery manufacturers are operating from China, restricting the local manufacturing capacity in other countries. Strong policy implementation and incentives to support the development of electric vehicle ecosystem is important for long term sustainability and growth of electric vehicles.
Asia-Pacific Electric Car Market Competitive Landscape
A considerable number of players are operating in the Asia-Pacific electric car market. These players can be broadly divided into two categories. The local Chinese players (such as BYD, BAIC and Dongfen) whose sales are mostly restricted to China and the global international companies (such as Nissan and General Motors) which are present in the many countries in the region including China. Due to the dominance of China in total sales, the local Chinese manufacturers together constitute a considerable share in the global sales.
Asia-Pacific Market Segmentation
By Battery Voltage
- Low Voltage
- Medium Voltage
- High Voltage
By Car Type
- Battery Electric Cars
- Hybrid Cars
- Plug-in Hybrid Electric Cars
By Battery Technology
- Sealed Lead Acid
- Li-ion
- Ni-MH
By Geography
- China
- India
- Japan
- Indonesia
- Thailand
- South Korea
