The zero-carbon target for vehicle traffic in 2050: A pipe dream?

To achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, 2050 was declared the year of zero carbon. For global road traffic with passenger cars, the goal is to lower CO2 emissions by 3,200,000 tons (3.2 Mt) annually. In this study, 30 countries were examined to see whether and how the zero-carbon target can be achieved by 2050 through the promotion of electric vehicles and/or the decarbonization of electricity generation. While an extrapolation of historical data only leads to the target in a few countries by 2050, a combination of replacing all combustion engines with electric drives and switching to CO2-free electricity could lead to zero-carbon traffic. However, this is contradicted by the enormous number of electric vehicles to be sold until 2050, which the market cannot absorb due to saturation tendencies. The limit to the growth of electric drives hampers limiting the detriment of the prior unlimited growth of carbon drives.