Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
This past year’s EV sales slump was a slowdown in the pace of acceleration, not an indication that the driving public is souring on electric mobility. Exhibit A comes from the automotive data firm AutoMotive, which has revved up its Global Electric Vehicle Tracker. According to their analysis, sales of internal combustion engine vehicles drifted down from a 78% market share two years ago to their current level of 63%, with EVs taking up the slack.
EV Sales Are Still Picking Up Market Share
The Global EV Tracker is not a complete picture of all EV sales — that would be expecting a bit too much — but it does pull data from 40 different markets, covering 85% of global car sales. The startup put out its 10th monthly report on November 25, and they had some things to say about the state of EV sales. (Note, of course, that we publish our own monthly world EV sales reports, and the data is probably even more complete.)
“Sales of internal combustion engine vehicles have slumped from 78% to 63%, with the market showing no sign of this trend slowing,” AutoMotive said, referring to a 2½ year period from 2022 to 2024. That’s a 20% shrink in a fairly short timespan.
“Meanwhile, in the same period, electric vehicles (EVs) have almost doubled their market share from 10% to 17.4%,” AutoMotive adds.
The number is even more impressive if you add plug-in hybrids together with 100% battery-electric vehicles. With a push from China on the hybrid side, cars with a plug accounted for 25.7% of car sales, a substantial increase from last year when the total was 21.9%.
EV Sales: Policy Matters, Part I
The picture isn’t all rosy. Some markets saw declines. However, AutoMotive found more hits than misses. Among the 10 biggest markets in Europe, declines occurred only in France, Germany, and Sweden.
The US is still the biggest EV market after China. However, if President-Elect Trump follows through on his pledge to end the all-important EV tax credit, prepare for a rocky ride here in the US. AutoMotive picks out a couple of examples (break added for readability):
“Amongst the worst performing economies, Romania is still suffering from a hangover after skipping EV Incentive Policy 101 and withdrawing incentives in one fell swoop.
“Meanwhile Iceland continues to wrestle with the outcome of introducing road pricing for all its cleanest vehicles with no policy in place to replicate it for petrol and diesel cars — cueing a collapse in buyer confidence.”
Ouch!
EV Sales: Policy Matters, Part II
In an interesting development on the matter of policy, earlier this month Reuters reported that representatives from the best-selling EV maker in the US — that would be Tesla — have told Trump’s transition team that their company supports giving the $7,500 federal EV tax credit the heave-ho. Doing the math … that doesn’t seem to make sense. If you can figure that one out, drop us a note in the comment thread. The argument that “it will hurt competitors’ EVs more than it hurts our EVs” doesn’t cut it.
Further adding to the intrigue is California, which used to be the sixth largest economy in the world if it was its own country. Now the state has nailed down the #4 position, further cementing its influence over the US auto market.
On November 25, Reuters noted that California Governor Gavin Newsom is planning to propose a state-based EV tax credit in the event that the federal credit goes buh-bye. However, reportedly, Tesla would not qualify for the new state-based tax credit.
After all, if the point is to increase EV sales, why provide a subsidy to an automaker that is already selling EVs hand over fist. That was just my not-so-random guess, but Forbes backs me up. Tesla still accounts for a generous 56% of EV sales in California, and Forbes notes that the new plan would only offer incentives for “carmakers with smaller market shares.”
Musk has registered his disfavor on X (formerly Twitter), but apparently all systems are go for Newsom to propose a new version of the California Clean Vehicle Rebate Program. As described by Reuters, the earlier program ended last year after subsidizing more than 594,000 vehicles.
Cheaper To Replace An EV Battery Than A Combustion Engine
Policy factors aside, the cost of EVs will continue to drop, led by a decline in battery costs. Technology improvements, falling commodities prices, and a potential oversupply of EV batteries are some of the factors cited by Liz Najman, a researcher with the EV sales analysis firm Recurrent, leading to the conclusion that the upfront cost of buying an EV will be on par with the cost of a comparable gasmobile by 2026.
In a piece posted by Recurrent on November 19, Najman notes that Goldman Sachs anticipates a cost of $64 per kilowatt-hour for EV battery packs by 2030. Other leading research groups see a steeper declines. RMI, for example, anticipates that battery packs will dip to $45–$65/kWh.
Najman also brings up the well-known fact that, all else being equal, EVs are less expensive to maintain than gasmobiles. That’s important from a TOC (total cost of ownership) perspective. If an EV costs the same as a comparable gasmobile, lower maintenance costs could help encourage a hesitant buyer to go over to the EV side.
That’s where it starts, but not where it ends. Najman notes that most members of the US car-buying public buy used, not new. For prospective used EV buyers the sticking point is concern over the state of a used EV battery. However, that is becoming another point of parity.
Najman cites an RMI analysis showing that by 2030, the cost of replacing an EV battery will be cheaper than replacing the engine on a gasmobile. An RMI analysis puts the replacement cost at $3,375 for a 75 kilowatt-hour battery pack. In addition, EV owners can defray the cost by selling their battery into the growing second-life market.
The $3,375 price point sounds about right for a parity argument. AutoZone puts the cost of an engine replacement at $2,000–$10,000, or even more, depending on the circumstances.
For that matter, all of this talk about battery replacement may be moot. Battery replacements are rare, and they are about to get rarer. The EV battery of today is expected to last for 200,000 miles, possibly more. Most electric cars won’t need their batteries replaced at all.
Follow me via LinkTree, or @tinamcasey on Threads, LinkedIn, and Bluesky
Image: Politics aside, EV sales have nowhere to go but up as battery costs continue to decline and battery performance continues to improve (courtesy of RMI).
Chip in a few dollars a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to accelerate the cleantech revolution!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy
