just a little day in 2025, electric vehicle It's already been a roller coaster ride of a year. last week, Tesla The bumpy journey began when it was reported that, for the first time, the reigning champion of US EVs had delivered fewer cars globally than the previous year. The automaker projects 1.789 million vehicles to be delivered in 2024, down 1.1 percent from 1.808 million delivered in 2023. Tesla's share prices fell 8 percent on this news.
Then, on Friday, more annual sales numbers came out, and the EV story turned rosy all around. General Motors said it sold 50 percent more electrics than last year, with its Chevrolet Equinox EV SUV leading the way. Honda's Prologue EV, which went on sale halfway through the year, moved 33,000 units — a coup for the Japanese automaker's U.S. electric debut. even fordwho said last year that this would happen Backtracked on its plan to increase all-electric sales Favoring a mix of EV, hybrid and gas cars, more than 50,000 were sold mustang mach-eS.
Global EV sales numbers probably won't be fully collected until next month, but analysts say that in the US, electric vehicles are on track to account for a fairly reasonable 8 percent of all car sales in 2024.
So maybe “roller coaster” is a little dramatic. In many ways, the EV sales story — and even the Tesla subplot — is playing out mostly the way everyone in the industry expected. “In the first half of the decade,” says Stephanie Brinley, principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility, “people thought there would be this crazy hockey-stick growth for EVs.” “That was not realistic. “Seeing it happen is more realistic.”
“Everyone is continuing to move forward slowly,” says Corey Cantor, senior associate covering electric vehicles at BloombergNEF, of electric cars and their manufacturers.
lukewarm optimism
No one said the transition to electric vehicles would be easy. “Electrification is one of the biggest changes we've ever seen in the auto industry — and the auto industry doesn't change overnight,” says Evan Drury, director of insights at automotive website Edmunds.
Building an all-new powertrain—and Sourcing The battery is only half of the mineral-challenge to energize it. Changing people's shopping habits, especially for one of the most expensive purchases of their lives, will be another part of this. Given those obstacles, “it's remarkable that we've seen so much change,” Drury says.
Even Tesla's bump in the road can be seen as evidence of what CEO Elon Musk's automaker is doing Some? Correct. In 2006, Musk announced his “master plan“It outlined Tesla's “overarching purpose”: “To help accelerate the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy to a solar electric economy, which I consider to be the primary, but not the exclusive, sustainable solution.” Tesla The company's annual growth challenges stem, in part, from the fact that this bet worked, and there is now a lot of global competition in the EV sector, with Tesla officially taking over the title of world's top EV maker from China. lost to BYD, which produced about 4,500 more electric cars last year (Tesla still sold More EVs, with critical assistance From Chinese buyers, who bought 8.8 percent more of the automaker's EVs last year than in 2023.)
Whether the global vehicle electrification project will stay on track depends to some extent on policy. There was a surge in EV sales in the US in the last quarter of the year. That's probably because consumers have heard about the new Trump administration's plan to eliminate electric vehicle incentives Get expert advice on buying new cars while they can still get subsidiesWhat happens in 2025 if those purchase incentives end?
Even with more sales figures to come, the 2024 figures seem to indicate that the industry is moving at the pace it should. “It's a crazy transition,” says analyst Brinley of the shift to electric vehicles. But she's confident: “We're going to see much more adoption,” she says.