News — Climate-friendly choices sometimes require lifestyle adjustments and personal sacrifices, but consumers can be reluctant to embrace these types of changes. That’s why the promise of both alternative proteins and electric vehicles is so compelling—consumers can significantly reduce their environmental footprints without altering their eating and driving habits.
Alternative proteins allow consumers to enjoy meat, egg, and dairy products while shrinking the environmental impacts of the food system, decreasing the risk of zoonotic disease, and feeding more people with fewer resources. Electric vehicles provide consumers with lower-carbon transportation options without sacrificing the driving experience and convenience of cars, trucks, and SUVs.
While campaigns focused on energy efficiency, improved public transportation, and reduced meat consumption are valuable, we are unlikely to convince a majority of consumers to consume less energy, drive less, or eat less meat any time soon. Given the urgency of the climate threat, we need to meet consumers where they are—with price-competitive renewable energy, with electric vehicles that satisfy consumer needs, and with plant-based and cultivated meat that tastes at least as good as conventional meat, and that costs the same or less.
A released by , , and leverages the similarities of these two sectors to identify key lessons alternative proteins can learn from the electric vehicle industry’s growth.
Over the past ten years, the electric vehicle industry grew from virtually nonexistent to roughly of total new car sales in the United States. In that time, the sector experienced phases of rapid growth and periods of sales decline.
The alternative protein industry—in its current form of creating products aiming to match the taste and texture of conventional animal products—exists in a much earlier stage of development than the electric vehicle industry. Plant-based meat’s market share currently hovers around of the U.S. retail meat category. Like electric vehicles, alternative protein sales have experienced significant growth over the last decade. But in recent years, of meat, egg, and dairy alternatives have slowed.
The report highlights the specific actions the electric vehicle industry took to navigate market downturns and support the health and viability of the sector. These strategies provide a roadmap for alternative protein industry stakeholders aiming to position alternative proteins for long-term success. Here are the key takeaways from the report:
Price and quality parity are critical to achieving mainstream adoption. From 2015 to 2023, the average price of a lithium-ion battery fell by while the average distance battery electric vehicles could drive on a single charge increased by roughly . There exists a clear relationship between cost, quality, and sales performance. Alternative proteins have made strides on both and metrics. Yet, at the category level, the between plant-based and conventional meat remains substantial, and some alternative protein products still fall short of meat eater's expectations. Alternative protein brands must continue to work toward closing the taste and price gaps to lay the groundwork for sustained market growth.
Supportive public policies enhance innovation and stimulate industry activity. Global electric vehicle policies have buoyed the sector through supply-, demand-, and ecosystem-side support. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) represented significant investments and provided policy frameworks to help electric vehicle market growth. Public sector support for alternative proteins has also in recent years. Yet, a separate but substantial collection of policy-making efforts has focused on restricting the research, production, and labeling of these products. Increasing the political appetite for more supportive policies could spur industry expansion as similar initiatives did in the electric vehicle sector. Relevant policy efforts for the alternative protein industry include establishing adoption and sales targets, supporting open-access scientific research, innovating on quality and price, and funding production capacity scale-up.
Robust public and private funding allows sectors to achieve impact at scale. Globally, in 2022 and 2023 alone, in funding for batteries and electric vehicles was announced. By comparison, over the same period, funding for alternative proteins totaled approximately and from the public and private sectors, respectively. Alternative proteins received roughly one percent of the funding of electric vehicles despite the and sectors contributing similar shares of global greenhouse gas emissions. Governments and the private sector should work to provide increased funding support across the alternative protein value chain.
The electric vehicle industry navigated periods of slowing sales much like what the alternative protein sector faces today. Cost and quality innovations, strategic policy support, and robust public and private funding helped the electric vehicle industry achieve and maintain growth. By taking similar actions for alternative proteins, governments and industry stakeholders can support the expansion of the alternative protein sector and pave the way for a more sustainable and secure food system.
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