Proceeding of the IEEE
International Conference on Information and Automation
Hailar, China, July 2014
Prediction of Electric Vehicle Ownership Based on
Gompertz Model*
Xiaolei Li and Enjie Wang
School of Control Science and Engineering
Shandong University
Jinan 250061, China
qylxl@sdu.edu.cn, wej2012@163.com
Abstract: This paper introduces the common prediction
methods of vehicle ownership, and makes a compare of the
Gompertz model with Logistic model. As a result, a prediction
model based on the Gompertz model is proposed to predict the
electric vehicle ownership of china. Then, the calculation of the
model’s parameters is given. Finally, we predict the electric
vehicle ownership with the civilian car ownership data of China.
According to the prediction results, China’s electric vehicle
ownership will reach the inflection point around 2035, and tend
to be saturated gradually.
Key Words: Gompertz model, electric vehicle, ownership
prediction
I. INTRODUCTION
China has become the first vehicle producer in the world.
The development of automobiles have brought a lot of
problems to energy security, climate change and economic
structure, which are long-term problems faced by the human
society. Now, the world has entered the era of solving the
common problem of human society. Whether problems of the
transport sector greenhouse gas emissions, energy
consumption and emissions can be solved effectively will
directly affect the solving of human society common
problems. Therefore, the major countries, organizations, car
manufacturers, energy providers, and risk investment
enterprises all over the world are taking actions together to
upgrade the global automobile industrial structure, and to
promote the transformation of the dynamic systems to
electrical systems. Then, a sustainable developing multi-level
structure of the electric vehicle social basic industries are
supposed to be formed, and the corresponding policies,
organization guarantee systems as well.
On the world climate conference in Copenhagen, Chinese
government put forward the target of reduction 40%~45% in
carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 2020. Promoting the
development of new energy vehicles, and accelerating the
process of energy conservation and industrialization of new
energy vehicles are not only the inevitable choice to cope with
the challenge of energy and the environment problems, but
also great measures to realize the sustainable development of
the Chinese automobile industry. China has begun planning
the promotion of new energy vehicles from 2001, and put
*
This work is partially supported by Special Funds for Postdoctoral Innovative Projects of Shandong Province under Grant 201202021.
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978-1-4799-4100-1/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
Chengjin Zhang
School of Mechanical, Electrical and Information
Engineering
Shandong University, Weihai
Weihai 264200, China
cjzhang@sdu.edu.cn
forward the objective that China's electric vehicles will reach
the number from 500,000 to 1 million till 2015.
The prediction of electric vehicle ownership has great
significance in policy planning and analyzing. General
prediction methods are based on the simple linear or
polynomial data fitting theory. They are easy to accomplish
and with simple calculations, but they are limited in the short
period of prediction, that is, more errors will be produced with
the increasing of prediction period. In fact, the simple linear or
polynomial data fitting methods can’t reflect the whole
development law of the system. Due to the multi-factor
property of the electric vehicle ownership prediction, a
Gompertz model is studied to cope with the developing law of
the electric vehicles of China. This will play a guiding
significance for planning to the development of electric
vehicles in China, as well as the construction of the charging
stations, charging piles and other service facilities.
II. ELECTRIC VEHICLE OWNERSHIP PREDICTION METHODS
ANAYSIS
Common prediction methods of vehicle ownership can be
divided into two categories: demand model and equilibrium
model. The most commonly used method is demand model
which can be divided into set model and non-set model [1].
Set models typically have Dargay & Gately’s Gompertz model
[2] and Ingram’s log linear equation [3], which are mainly
used for macro policy analysis or long-term prediction. And
the non-set model is mainly used for short-term prediction.
Set model includes saturation level limit method and no
saturation level limit method. The common method of no
saturation level limit method is log-linear model. It regards the
logarithm of ownership rate as a linear logarithmic equation of
some potential decision factors such as population, per capita
GDP, etc., and it is widely used because of simple and
practical. Button, Ngoe and Hine using the logarithmic model
made regression analysis for low income country’s automobile
ownership rate income level [4]. They divide low income
countries into five groups, and set each group a certain
saturation rate to predict the future ownership rate. Ingram and
Liu use log-linear model to predict the automobile ownership
rate in the state level and city level respectively [3]. Logarithm
model’s chief drawback is that the elasticity coefficient is
fixed, not changes with the position of the demand curve.
The commonly used saturation level limit method is
Gompertz model. Dargay and Gately using the Gompertz
model successfully predicted the trend of car ownership until
2015 with 26 countries’ data which include the developed
countries and developing countries from 1960-1992.
Compared with the logarithm model, the Gompertz model is
more flexible. Especially, it can allow different curvatures
exist in the different stages.
Presently, domestic scholars of China also made a lot of
researches on civil car ownership. Wang Yi-ni using Gompertz
model made international comparison for automobile rate and
the Chinese automobile demand approximate prediction [5].
Gu Ji-bao et al. using Gompertz model studied the nonlinear
relationship between civil car ownership and per capita
income of 31 provinces [6].
However, there are less researches on electric vehicle
ownership in domestic at present. Wang Rui-miao, Chen Tao
and Liu Yong-xiang [7] made the civilian car ownership
prediction using elasticity and thousand holdings methods on
the basis of the relationship between GDP and car ownership.
And on this basis, according to the planning of the Ministry of
industry and information technology predicted the electric
vehicle ownership. YANG Fang-wen and WANG Xing-xing [8]
using the first-order autoregressive model calculated the car
ownership in China of 2010-2015 years, and roughly predicted
the next five years ownership of new energy vehicles. Zeng
Ming et al. [9] predicted our country’s electric vehicle
ownership based on bass model.
The above prediction models of electric vehicle
ownership just made a short-term prediction fitting for electric
car ownership, and didn’t take the current electric vehicle
ownership actual statistical data into account. To give a long-
term and whole life-time prediction of China’s electric vehicle
ownership developing trend, Gompertz model is studied and
applied in this paper.
III. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PREDICTION MODEL
A. Gompertz model
The Gompertz curve is proposed by the British
statistician and mathematician Benjamin Gompertz in 1825. It
is one of the growth curves, and initially used to analyze how
to control the population growth. In 1922, American
researcher R. Prescott first used Gompertz curve to predict the
market demand. After then, the curve is more and more used
in the product life cycle analysis, especially suitable for the
mature period product, and to predict the market demand and
product saturation. Its general mathematical model is as
following,
Yt = k × abt (1)
Where, a, b are the parameters to be estimated; k is the upper
limit of Yt, 0 is the lower limit value; t is time trend variable,
which gradually increasing with the increase of time. The
parameter a decides the position of the curve, b decides the
asymptote slope, and ((lnb)/a，k/e) is inflection point.
B. Logistic model
Professor Pierre Francois Verhulst discovers that sigmoid
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curves are useful for describing population growth in 1845,
and he gave the name logistic to the curve. The model plays an
important role in economics, and it can be used to predict
consumer durables ownership and many other similar issues.
Its general form is as following,
k
Yt = (2)
1 + β e − at
Where, Yt is the ownership at time t; k is the upper limit of Yt;
β and a are the parameters to be estimated; t is time.
C. Establish the prediction model
As a kind of durable consumer goods, car ownership will
change generally four periods: initial investment period,
accelerated growth period, slow growth period and saturation
period, just as shown in Fig.1. Gompertz curve simulates the
growth of car ownership basically following S type curve of
the above durable consumer goods life cycle, and it has been
proved from the practice of developed countries. Although
auto demand in developing countries still in the initial stage, it
also will be in accordance with the above trend of the
development.
Saturation
Car ownership
period
Slow
Accelerate
growth
d
period
growth
period
t
Fig.1 Developing trend of car ownership
In addition, some researchers use Logistic curve
analyzing the development trend of durable consumer goods.
Compared with each other, they have some similarities. For
instance, they all belong to three parameter curves, can better
describe some bounded growth phenomenon, and can be
widely used in the law of economic activities, information
science, prediction and other fields. For the characteristics of
the curve, Logistic and Gompertz curve’s explanatory
variables are increasing on the interval (-∞, +∞), and the scope
of explanatory variables are (0, k). However, they also have
many differences in some aspects, Logistic curve have some
shortcomings compared with the Gompertz curve. Those two
kinds of curves all have only one inflection point, but for the
Logistic curve, the inflection point is also the center of
symmetry, and the Gompertz curve has no center of symmetry.
In the late growth stage, the Gompertz curve range increment
can reach several times of its early growth stage, which shows
that the growth phenomenon represented by the Gompertz
curve shows a rising trend better in the later stage, more in line
with the development of the car ownership [10].
So we choose the Gompertz model to predict the future
electric vehicle ownership in China.
To predict the future electric vehicle ownership, we
establish the following Gompertz model,
− kt
Y = λ e− β e β, k>0 (3)
Where, Y is electric vehicle ownership; t is time; λ is the upper We can know from the above analysis, the development of
value of Y, which can be determined by experiences; β, k are Chinese electric vehicles is still in the initial stage.
parameters to be estimated. Taking second derivative of According to the research of [2], most of OECD
Gompertz model and making it equal to 0, we can get countries car ownership rate will converge to satiety level 0.62.
coordinate of the inflexion point t=lnβ/k. This satiety level includes common fuel vehicles and electric
vehicles. Considering the above factors, we set the upper limit
IV. CALCULATION OF PARAMETERS
value of Y as 500 million, namely λ=500 million. Then
According to [11], the parameters of the Gompertz model according to the formula to calculate the annual y value, and
can be calculated as following steps. use t express years. Where, t=1 represent the year 2011, t=2
First, taking logarithm of formula (3) on both side, we represent the year 2012, t=3 represent the year 2013, t=4
can get the following equation, represent the year 2014, t=5 represent the year 2015. Then we
λ can get the data conversion results in table 1, the unit of Y is
ln = β e− kt (4) ten thousand vehicles;
Y Table 1 Data conversion result.
Second, taking logarithm again to formula (4), we can t 1 2 3 4 5
get equation (5). Y 1 3 4.8 15 35
λ
ln ln = ln β − kt (5) y 2.3814 2.2743 2.2247 2.0933 1.9829
Y
Using the results of the table 1 make linear regression,
λ we can get the value of parameters,
Then, make ln ln =y and ln β = x , so, equation (5) can
Y k=0.0978，x=2.4847，β=11.9975
be converted into the following linear regression model, Therefore, electric vehicle ownership prediction model
y = x − kt (6) can be described as following,
−0.0978t
Where, the regression coefficient x and k can be calculated by Y = 50000e −11.9975e (9)
the following formula [11], Where, the unit of Y is ten thousand vehicles. According to the
x = y − kt (7) formula t = ln β / k , we can get t=25.4. This shows that
k=
∑ yi ti − nty (8)
Chinese electric vehicle ownership will reach the inflection
nt 2 − ∑ ti 2 point in 2035, and the electric car ownership will be 176.64
million vehicles. According to the prediction model, the future
By calculating simultaneous equations (6), (7), and (8), 10 years electric vehicle ownership of China is as shown in
we can obtain the parameters β, k of Gompertz model. table 2. And the development trend of Chinese future electric
V．ELECTRIC VEHICLE OWNERSHIP PREDICTION vehicle ownership is as shown in Fig.2.
Table 2 The future 10 years electric vehicle ownership of China
A. Direct prediction based on Gompertz model Years Ownership(10 thousand)
According to the latest statistics, the electric vehicle 2016 63.3
ownership in China is about 10,000 in 2011, and over 30,000 2017 117.9
by 2012. According to the 2013 Global New Energy Vehicle 2018 207.1
Conference (GNEV), Chinese new energy automobile 2019 345.3
2020 548.6
production and sales volume in 2013 were respectively 17533 2021 836.0
and 17642 vehicles, year-on-year growth rate is 39.7% and 2022 1222.9
37.9% respectively. The pure electric vehicle production and 2023 1729.6
sales volume were 14243 and 14604 respectively, and the 2024 2365.5
hybrid electric vehicle production and sales volume were 3290
and 3038 respectively. The GNEV also predicted China's
market sales of electric vehicle, ranging from 60,000 to
150,000. According to the national "Twelfth Five Year Plan",
Ownership

our country electric vehicle will reach 0.5~1 million by 2015,

and reach 5 million by 2020. However, according to the report
of Chinese Automobile Industry Association deputy secretary
general Ye Shengji on GNEV 2013, on the basis of current
market new energy vehicle ownership, by the end of 2015
sales volume at 20,0000 new energy vehicles is already a very
good result. The figure 500,000 initially established is a
comprehensive consideration of car production and national
policy planning two aspects, and this figure is challenging. He
believes that the country will not reduce the threshold of the
motor vehicles in order to pursue the figures on the growth.
Fig.2 The trend of Chinese future electric vehicle ownership
B. Prediction based on the civil vehicle ownership data
Due to the development of the electric vehicle is still at
its initial stage, statistical data of electric vehicle ownership in
recent years is less and lack of accuracy. When we directly
predicted electric vehicle ownership based on Gompertz

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model, the sample data are less. Therefore, the prediction error −0.0641t
is inevitable. Y = 80000e −3.9003e (10)
The civil car ownership in the developed countries such Where, the unit of Y is ten thousand vehicles. According the
as the United States has saturated, and the law of development formula t = ln β / k , we can get t=25.4. This shows that
can be fitted better by Gompertz model. Studies have found Chinese civil vehicle ownership will reach the inflection point
that the growth of car ownership simulated by Gompertz curve in 2024, and the electric car ownership will be 308.78 million
basically follow the S type curve, which has been proved from vehicles. According to the prediction model, the future 10
the practice of developed countries. Although auto demand in years civil vehicle ownership of China is as shown in table 4.
developing countries is still in its infancy, but will also follow
Table 4 The future 10 years civilian vehicle ownership of China
the trend of the S type curve [10]. In addition, a country’s
Years Ownership(10 thousand)
vehicle ownership development, including ordinary civil cars 2015 14665.9
and electric cars, will also be in accordance with Gompertz 2016 16294.5
curve. 2017 18033.4
Based on the above analysis, we use the statistical data in 2018 19725.8
recent years of Chinese civil cars to make the curve fitting 2019 21577.0
2020 23418.5
with Gompertz model. Then use the proportion coefficient 2021 25219.7
method to calculate the proportion of the electric vehicle, and 2022 27159.4
to predict the electric vehicle ownership. According to the 2023 28998.0
research of Dargay and Gately, in the next 20 years most of 2024 30877.5
OECD countries car ownership rate will converge to satiety
According to the prediction results, China's civilian car
level 0.62. Considering the future population trends in China,
ownership will reach the inflection point around 2025, and
here we set the upper limit of Y as 800 million vehicles.
tends to saturation. While the development of electric vehicles
According to the “China Statistical Yearbook”, China's
is relatively slow, expecting to reach the inflection point
civilian car ownership (10 thousand) in recent years as shown
around 2035. Analysis shows that in the ten years before 2025,
in Fig.3.
the total trend of our country civilian car ownership, including
electric vehicle and common fuel vehicle, is in the stage of
slow development, while the electric car itself is at the
accelerated growth stage. And in the ten years after 2025, the
Ownership

total trend of our country civilian car ownership tends to be

stable, and a large proportion of the ordinary fuel vehicles will
be replaced by electric vehicles, and the development of the
electric car ownership itself is going to slow development
stage reaching the inflection point around 2035. The
ownership changing trend is as shown in Fig.4.
Fig.3 China's civilian car ownership in recent years
Civilian cars
Then, according to formula (6) we can calculate the y
Ownership

value of the past years expressed in t. Here, t=1 represents the Electric
vehicles
year 2003, t=2 represent the year 2004, t=3 represent the year
2004... , t=10 represent the year 2012. The data conversion Common fuel
results are as shown in table 3. Where, the unit of Y is ten vehicles
thousand vehicles.
Table 3 Data conversion results
t Y y
1 2382.9 1.2567
2 2693.7 1.2212 t
3 3159.6 1.1729
4 3697.3 1.1231 Fig.4 The ownership change trend
5 4358.3 1.0681
6 5099.6 1.0126 According to the national "Twelfth Five Year Plan",
7 6280.6 0.9340 Chinese electric vehicle will reach 0.5 million by 2015, and
8 7801.8 0.8449 reach 5 million by 2020. So, electric vehicles accounted for
9 9356.3 0.7636 0.34% of total civil car in 2015, and 2.14% of total civil car in
10 10933.1 0.6883 2020. Therefore, the electric vehicle occupation ratio
According to the parameter estimation formula (7) and increased by 1.8% in 2015-2020. According to the analysis
(8), using the data in table 3 we can obtain the value of above, from 2015 to 2025, the electric car ownership is in the
parameters, k=0.0641, x= 1.3611, β=3.9003. Therefore, stage of accelerating growth, so we make electric vehicles
Chinese civil vehicle ownership prediction model can be occupation ratio r1 in 2015-2025 quadratic curve fitting. The
described as following, occupation ratio r1 can be calculated with the following

90
formula, [7] Wang Ruimiao, Chen Tao, Liu Yongxiang. Electric Vehicle Holdings
Prediction Using Elasticity and Thousand Holdings Methods. Agricultural
r1 = 0.34 + 0.072t12 (11) Equipment & Vehicle Engineering, 2011, (6):40-43, 48.
[8] Yang Fang-wen, Wang Xing-xing. The Prediction of Possession for
Where, 0 ≤ t1 ≤ 10 ， t1=0 is the year 2015, t1=1 is the year Alternative Fuel Automobile Based on Autoregressive Model. Science
2016…t1=10 is the year 2025. Technology and Industry, 2011, 11(6):80-85.
Therefore, electric vehicle ownership prediction model in [9] Zeng Ming, Zeng Fan-xiao, Zhu Xiao-li, Xue Song. Forecast of Electric
Vehicle in China Based on Bass Model. Electric Power, 2013, 46(1):36-
2015~2025 can be described as following, 39.
−0.0641t [10]Zhao Hongmei. The Medium and Long Term Forecast of China’s Vehicle
Y = (0.34 + 0.072(t − 13)2 )80000e−3.9003e (12) Stock per 1000 Person Based on the Gompertz Model. Journal of
Where, 13 ≤ t ≤ 23 , which represent the year 2015~2025. So, Industrial Technological Economics, 2012, (7):7-23.
[11] Cai Jianjian. The Tendency Forecasting of Family Car Demand of
the future 10 years electric vehicle ownership of China is as
Urban Inhabitants of Ningbo.Beijing: Science paper Online, [2008-01-
shown in table 5. 07].http://www.paper.edu.cn/releasepaper/content/200801-159.
Table 5 The future 10 years electric vehicle ownership of China
Years Ownership(10 thousand)
2015 49.9
2016 67.1
2017 113.2
2018 194.9
2019 321.9
2020 501.1
2021 739.4
2022 1050.5
2023 1435.0
2024 1906.0
After 2025, the electric car ownership is going to be the
slow growth period, and we can calculate the the electric
vehicle occupation ratio with logarithmic function.
Prediction results of the above two methods are basically
same, which shows that our country electric vehicles over the
next ten years is at the accelerating stage, and expected to
more than 20 million vehicles in 2025.
VI. CONCLUTION
This paper mainly introduces the common prediction
methods of vehicle ownership, and compares the Gompertz
model with other models like the Logistic model. On the basis
of previous research, we use two methods, direct prediction
method and indirect prediction method, to predict the electric
vehicle ownership of china based on the Gompertz model and
the civil vehicle ownership data. According to the prediction
results of these two methods, the Chinese electric vehicle
ownership will reach the inflection point around 2035, and
tend to be saturated gradually.
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