Electric-car sales are growing. Total car sales around the world are shrinking.

Put the two together, and the conclusion from many analysts is that sales of cars powered by internal combustion engines around the world have already peaked.

From 2019 onward, they’re likely to do nothing but shrink, according to several automotive analysts interviewed in the Financial Times (subscription required) for a piece published late last month.

The FT quotes several analytics firms forecasting that global auto sales will fall in 2019 compared with a record 95.5 million cars sold in 2018, according to Moody’s Analytics.

There are several factors at play: an international trade war among the U.S., China, and Europe; tighter consumer credit in the world’s largest auto market, China; troubled Brexit negotiations; and tighter European restrictions on carbon-dioxide emissions.

Other analytics firms, including Evercore ISI, Accenture, and Jato Dynamics told the FT that they expect a structural downturn in 2019, based on slower sales in the second half of 2018.

At the same time, sales of electric cars are rising. AlixPartners, a British consulting service, says it expects electric car sales to grow by 1.5 million in 2019, reaching about 1.6 percent of the global market.

“Peak ICE” may already have occurred at the end of 2018, Elmer Kades, global co-leader of AlixPartners’ automotive practice told the FT. “It’s this slowing growth of the overall pie that the industry should be most concerned with, even as it has to … pay for the continuing switchover to electric vehicles.”

Read more: Green Car Reports

Millions of people could miss out on the environmental and financial benefits of electric vehicles (EVs), according to a new report.

The report by the think tank Localis warns poorer parts of the country could get left behind unless local authorities are given to power to draw up their own ‘smart city’ plans and energy policies.

In addition, it argues local authorities should be able to form their own consortiums using existing knowledge of their local areas, and also be empowered to work with private energy network providers to deliver the infrastructure they need for the future.

The report also emphasised that families across the UK are at risk of sharing the cost for necessary new energy infrastructure, but not being able to access for themselves the benefits of EVs and other ‘smart’ technologies – driving further inequality between richer and poorer parts of the country.

‘Without a change in regulation, behaviour and a wholesale transfer of powers for local energy policies, we risk a tale of two cities in our major urban centres – deepening levels of inequality between the prosperous and more deprived parts of town,’ said Localis chief executive, Jonathan Werran.

‘A ‘devolution revolution’ in locally-regulated energy markets has the potential to accelerate the nation’s switch to clean growth, turn UK cities into powerhouses for sustainable and inclusive prosperity and improve livelihoods in towns and cities across the UK.’

Read more: Environment Journal

The auto industry is headed for revolution, Trump notwithstanding.

Though it may seem like several dozen scandals ago, the Trump administration is just now finalizing plans to freeze national fuel-economy standards in place, rather than steadily increasing them as Obama planned.

This is a terrible idea, for reasons I have detailed at length — it will cost consumers more, ensure more air and climate pollution, and, obviously, yield less fuel-efficient vehicles. It’s a bad idea economically, environmentally, and in terms of America’s international reputation.

I’m not going to go through all that again, though. Instead, in this short post, I want to do two things: point out a fact about the political calculations of this plan, namely, that it is opposed by the very corporate entities for which it was designed; and, second, make a bold prediction about the effect of electric vehicles on this fuel-economy debate. Basically, I think EVs are going to render the whole dispute moot!

First, the fact.

Car companies don’t like this plan

Car companies have acted with grotesque dishonesty throughout the history of the fuel-economy debate. It was only when Obama bailed them out — literally saving them from bankruptcy — that they agreed to come to the table to work out increased national standards.

When Trump took over, they immediately reversed course and, like jackals, descended on the new administration, pleading for regulatory relief, for a few more years of SUV profits.

And as in so many other areas, Trump gave business what they wanted. More than what they wanted. So much of what they wanted that they don’t want it anymore! Let me explain.

The administration has been holding public hearings on its proposal, and not surprisingly, it has received a torrent of opposition from the usual suspects — environmentalists, health groups, California. What is somewhat surprising is that considerable opposition has come from the auto companies themselves. (Also speaking out against, Axios reports: Shell Oil! When you’ve lost Shell …)

Ford has opposed it, along with the United Auto Workers. “Let me be clear,” said Bob Holycross, Ford’s global director of Sustainability & Vehicle Environmental Matters. “We do not support standing still.” GM and Chrysler have also lobbied the administration to alter its plans.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a major automaker trade group, has also opposed the plan. “We support standards that increase year over year,” said AAM CEO Mitch Bainwol at a hearing.

“The industry is united in its request that the agencies work out an agreement with California” for a single, rising national standard, Honda said in recent comments.

As for Trump’s plan? “We didn’t ask for that,” Robert Bienenfeld, Honda’s assistant vice president in charge of environment and energy strategy, told the New York Times. “The position we outlined was sensible.”

Read more: Vox