Electric Vehicle sales doubling every 18 months

“No question about it. Internal combustion engine (ICE) is done.”, said my confidante and mentor when I shared to him this graph.

The current sales trend of Electric Vehicles (EV) paints a clear picture: The volume of EV sales doubles every 18 months…

In 2016, British Petroleum (BP) expected 71 million EVs on the road by 2035. Latest sales data shows that we will reach that volume by 2025. Full decade ahead of schedule.

As the pace of energy transition hastens, so does the gap between countries/regions that adopt EVs early versus those who are laggards.

Early adopters are ahead of the curve; these countries/regions tend to gain experience and matures fast.

Top of my head the benefits are:

1. Experimentation of public policies in balancing the interest of greener future against existing interests in fossil fuels (For example Norway)
2. Introduction of new supporting services & business models around EVs; enabling budding entrepreneurs to try out new ideas. For example EV leasing to battery recycling to introduction of new digital services. Or perhaps someone would buy up all the parking spaces and convert them to EV charging space.
3. Smoother transition when these countries/regions finally decide to cut off fossil fuel entirely (at least on the use of fossil fuel for personal mobility).
4. It is smoother since they are at the forefront of EV adoptions, they have full control on the pace of change (for example, deciding on policy level how many EVs should be manufactured by certain year).
5. Compare this to laggards (countries that adopt EVs late) – These laggards will be literally choked with old inefficient ICE cars > more dependence on fossil fuels > high susceptibility to global fuel fluctuations. Current Ukraine War has only sped up European Unions effort to ditch Russian oil.
6. As global car manufacturers switch to EVs, one can expect countries/regions yet to adopt EVs to be the dumping ground of inefficient ICE cars. Again, the same cycle persists > more dependence on fossil fuels > spending more on healthcare and little control over public expenditure.

What are your thoughts? How can Malaysia transition to be an adopter of EV while balancing its interest in the lucrative oil resource?