The electric vehicle revolution that by most accounts was ramping up in 2020 faces one of the biggest threats since EVs started to go mainstream in the last decade.
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus in late December has paralyzed key parts of the Chinese economy. By early March, the virus spread further across Europe and into the US. On March 9, oil prices crashed. With the markets rattled, governments from Italy to the U.S. took increasingly drastic measures, from locking down entire nations to banning travel and declaring states of emergency. Central banks around the world cut interest rates and promised to buy bonds, in a bid to keep their economies churning.
“Developments over the past week have greatly increased the likelihood that the global economy is moving into recession in response to the surge in COVID-19 cases worldwide, the associated disruption, and the aggressive market sell-off,” said Ben May, director of global macro research at Oxford Economics.
Electrification is here to stay, the conventional wisdom holds, but these developments are bad news for industries that were looking to tip the scales in favor of electric this year.