EV sales continue to rise, but the last year of headlines falsely stating otherwise would leave you thinking they haven’t. After about full year of these lies, it would be nice for journalists to stop pushing this false narrative that they could find the truth behind by simply looking up a single number for once.
Here’s what’s actually happening: Over the course of the last year or so, sales of battery electric vehicles, while continuing to grow, have posted lower year-over-year percentage growth rates than they had in previous years.
This alone is not particularly remarkable – it is inevitable that any growing product or category will show slower percentage growth rates as sales rise, particularly one that has been growing at such a fast rate for so long.
In some recent years, we’ve even seen year-over-year doublings in EV market share (though one of those was 2020->2021, which was anomalous). To expect improvement at that level perpetually would be close to impossible – after 3 years of doubling market share from 2023’s 18% number, EVs would account for more than 100% of the global automotive market, which cannot happen.
Instead of the perpetual 50% CAGR that had been optimistically expected, we are seeing growth rates this year of ~10% in advanced economies, and higher in economies with lower EV penetration (+40% in “rest of world” beyond US/EU/China). Notably, this ~10% growth rate is higher than the above Norway example, which nobody would consider a “slump” at 94% market share.
It’s also clear that EV sales growth rates are being held back in the short term by Tesla, which has heretofore been the global leader in EV sales. Tesla actually has seen a year-over-year reduction in sales in recent quarters – likely at least partially due to chaotic leadership at the wayward EV leader – as buyers have been drawn to other brands, while most of which have seen significant increases in EV sales.
We just got out first EV: an Acura ZDX. Nowhere near $100k, but not on the cheap side either. It is a quality, smaller SUV with lots of comfort features and a 280 mile range for the model we got. And the acceleration is nuts.
We’ve been charging it at home with the included 35A 220V charger and it has been fantastic. It is amazing how good it feels to not stop at gas stations.
Only thing we’ve lost is the ability to road trip. We still have another car we can use if we really needed to go distances but the charging infrastructure seems to be thin in this area.
On the small car side, there are more and more popping up in the US. They have ranges around the 150 mark which just won’t cut it. I get that it is a weight thing with the batteries but unless you’re in an area that has rapid charging at most places you stop you’re not gonna make it. I think that’s why you’re seeing so many midsize and large SUVs turned EV - the math just works better to give the range people are looking for.