Min Zhu isChairman of the National Institute of Financial Research at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The market for electric vehicles is developing far more dynamically than could have been expected years ago. Countries that fail to recognize the trend now and convert their economies will face high subsequent costs in the future, believe former International Monetary Fund Vice President Min Zhu and economists Fuad Hasanov and Reda Cherif. The trio of state-affiliated economists believe: market forces in emerging markets will drivethe electric revolution much faster than the stolid players in established industrialized countries have so far expected.
Four years ago, we argued that the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) would upend both the auto industry and the oil market. As with the rapid displacement of horses by automobiles in the United States a century ago, the exponential rise of EVs would lead to their dominance of the global auto market in the early 2040s. Oil would become the new coal and its price would drop to $15 per barrel. The economic and geopolitical consequences would be profound.
