Do we want an energy transition（转变） that removes energy from the climate change conversation? Yes. Well, even if some of you do not care about that. Do we want an energy transition that reduce the electricity price dramatically（大幅度地）? Yes. Do we want an energy transition that moves us towards energy independence（独立）?
Yes. If so, electrification everywhere with electricity sourced from solar（太阳的）, wind, and other renewables（能再生的） requires energy storage（贮藏）. And batteries hold the key to unlocking（开启） this sustainable（可以忍受的） future and to making（使） this transition（转变） happen. We need batteries, a lot of them. Today, the batteries lithium-ion（[化学] 离子） batteries that are powering（激励） your phones and your laptops and some of the cars, the world production is barely（几乎不） over one terawatt hour per year. And we need to do this ten times more and fast to help you understand what one terawatt hour means.
The United States requires us to produce one terawatt hour to keep the country running for one single hour. So, to accomplish（完成） the mission（使命） for deep decarbonization of our economy, we will need a few hundred terawatt hour of batteries. Today, we only accomplished one percent of what we need. And this is a massive（厚重的） gap. And we must fuel（给…加燃料） this gap in less than decade. This is unprecedented（空前的） in our history.
However, I'm going to showcase（陈列橱） today the case for hope. It can be done. The few hundred terawatt hour is what we call the scaling gap and comes down to critical（决定性的） factors that are rapidly（快） expanding needs. First, our massive growing love for electric cars. And second, our shifting（替换） global renewable（能再生的） energy grid（网格）. Electrification, especially the electrification of vehicles, is gaining（获得） momentum（动力）.
Electric vehicles are truly（真实地） affordable（负担得起的） and reliable means of transportation（运输） today. 2023 will be the first year more than one million electric cars are sold in the United States. That is about 6.5 percent of the total 16 million cars sold in this country. Globally（世界上）, we're expecting by 2050, there will be 1.5 billion cars in the world. Clearly, we need 10 times more batteries to replace all the internal（内的） combustion（燃烧） engine cars. Transportation is responsible for one-third of the carbon（碳） dioxide emission（(光、热等的)散发） in the United States.
We estimate（估计） globally（世界上） we need about 150 terawatt hour batteries to meet the future demand（ 要求） of transportation（运输）. And as I said, right now, we're barely over two terawatt hour. This is a massive gap to fill. The batteries that used in electric cars, in fact, the EV success will rely（依赖） on the advancement（进步） of the batteries. We have to store more energy in the batteries without sacrificing（牺牲） safety or cost. So imagine the batteries that we need in the next decade.
We would like to have the batteries, and we must have batteries that allow us to have 500 miles driving range per charge. Or charge it really fast within five to six minutes. And having a longer lifetime（一生）, battery life will be longer than the parts of the EV, and those batteries will be repurposed or recycled. Achieving these breakthroughs（ 突破） will accelerate（加速） the adoption（采用） of the electric cars and revolutionize the way we travel. So first the scaling（衡量） problem done. Let's now move towards grid-scale energy storage.
We all know wind and solar, those renewable energies, provide us clean and virtually（实际上） limitless source of energy for all of us. However, the intermittent（间歇的） nature of these sources imposes（把…强加） a significant（重大的） challenge.