EV adoption in the US

I am slowly winding down this week before my usual summer hiatus, so forgive me if today’s edition is not too scientific but simply shows some intriguing charts and statistics about EV adoption in the United States.

In the UK and in Europe in general, Rowan Atkinson of Mr. Bean fame has caused a little bit of controversy recently with an op-ed about why he thinks EVs are not ready for mass adoption, yet. Tellingly, both the Guardian and the centre-right Times of London as well as Der Spiegel in Germany ran fact checks and rebuttals of that op-ed. Even the very conservative Daily Telegraph didn’t buy his arguments.

But let’s look at the facts in the country that was simultaneously an early adopter and incredibly reluctant when it comes to EVs: The United States. I say the United States was an early adopter of EVs because Tesla was the company that led EVs to their breakthrough and the tech bros in Silicon Valley were the ones who bought expensive electric cars and helped make them more cost-efficient as Tesla scaled up production and new technologies were developed.

At the same time, large parts of the US remain EV deserts as the chart below shows. Go to the Midwest and you will not see an EV for days on end, which the authors of this study claim, is due mostly to the decision by EV car makers not to sell their cars in these states. Yes, but the reason why car makers don’t sell their cars in Oklahoma is that the demand for them would be very low, both for political and practical reasons. Most of the US is built for internal combustion engine cars, with the need to drive large distances to get from A to B. And the biggest problem for EVs still is the lower range compared to internal combustion engine cars and the lack of a dense charging network, particularly when it comes to rapid chargers.

Share of sales for electric cars in the United States

Source: Gillingham et al. (2023)

But, as all the rebuttals to Rowan Atkinson’s op-ed have pointed out, the technology is improving quickly. Take a look at the charts below. They show the advances in range and charger networks since 2014. In the six years between 2014 and 2020, the range of EVs has roughly doubled on a sales-weighted average while the number of fast chargers has quadrupled.

Advances in EV range and charger density

Source: Gillingham et al. (2023)

Meanwhile, the average sales price of an EV has remained remarkably stable over time. In other words, you get twice the range today than you got in 2014 for the same price. And it is a lot easier to charge them. No wonder more and more people switch to EVs even in the US. In fact, the study shows that when comparing the sales shares of EVs in the US with the most similar cars with an internal combustion engine, EV sales surpassed 50% in 2020. When consumers in the US are given an alternative between EVs and internal combustion engines, they now overwhelmingly go for EVs.

Average sales price of EVs and market share

Source: Gillingham et al. (2023)

I switched to an EV in 2020 and I would never go back. Not only am I so deeply in love with my car that I wrote an entire post about what makes it so great, fact is here in the UK owning an EV makes a lot of sense unless you are someone who lives in the deepest countryside. Distances are smaller than in the US but if you want to go long distance, you can rest assured that every motorway station has rapid chargers where you can charge a modern EV within 30 minutes to 80% of its range. And 80% of the range of most cars these days is some 200-250 miles, enough to get you to almost anywhere you want to go.

It is true, though that when I go into the Cornish or Welsh countryside, I sometimes struggle to find a charger, so a little bit of planning is still needed in these cases. But as long as you are not completely unprepared I have no problem whatsoever. And as far as I know, people in France and Germany have the same experience.

So, overall, yes, there are improvements to the charging network that need to be made and the range of EVs could be better while the raw materials should be replaced with easier-to-source and less polluting ones. But the industry is evolving fast. Ranges and network density continue to grow at exponential rates and more and more electric cars are now using batteries that are free from cobalt and nickel. Tesla is apparently using cobalt-free batteries in half its cars while BYD, which is now launching its cars in the UK and Europe, is entirely cobalt- and nickel-free in the batteries it uses.

In short, I am not worried about the state of EVs. They are not a dead end for the energy transition. In my view, we have already gone past the point of no return. When it comes to cars, electric is the new standard against which other technologies like hydrogen or biofuel engines must prevail. To be sure, there is an important role for hydrogen and biofuel to play in heavy-duty vehicles, ships, airplanes, etc. But when it comes to cars, the die is cast.