While much of the world races to build and sell more electric vehicles, America is on track to become an also-ran.
This week, the International Energy Agency released its 2025 Global EV Outlook, in which it projects that the share of plug-in car sales in the U.S. will increase from 10% today to 20% in 2030. That may sound like healthy growth—until you consider what the IEA had expected before the newly elected Republican trifecta began dismantling pro-EV policies.
In last year’s report, the organization estimated that EVs and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) would make up 55% of U.S. car sales by the end of the decade. Even in that rosier scenario, China would still be eating America’s lunch by a wide margin. Now, it won’t even be close.
Photo by: Tim Levin/InsideEVs
From day one of President Trump’s second term, the IEA notes, it became U.S. policy to “eliminate subsidies and other policy measures influencing markets in favour of EVs.” Here’s a quick recap of where things stand.
Congress is in the early stages of repealing the $7,500 clean-car tax credit, a key driver of EV affordability and sales. The Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency are each expected to relax tailpipe-pollution regulations that push automakers to clean up their fleets. There’s an effort underway to strip California of its ability to set an EV sales mandate, a framework that 11 other states and Washington, D.C. follow. And the federal government has effectively frozen billions of dollars in funding intended to beef up the nation’s charging infrastructure.
Meanwhile, China has already created the infrastructure and industry required for rapid EV sales growth. The IEA now projects that EVs and PHEVs will make up 80% of the country’s car sales by 2030, thanks to improvements in vehicle affordability, policies that make them cheaper to buy and government support for building out charging stations. This year, the IEA revised up its 2030 EV outlook for China by around 14 percentage points.
The BYD Seagull is a popular low-cost electric vehicle made in China.
Photo by: Patrick George
Europe is projected to leave America in its dust too, with an electric share of sales nearing 60%.
Other researchers who watch this space now see a similarly stunted trajectory for the U.S. EV sector, at least compared to what could have been.
In an April report, the International Council on Clean Transportation found that eliminating the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for EV buyers and manufacturers would depress plug-in car sales by 1.1 million units in 2030. It also projected that an IRA repeal would cost the U.S. 130,000 jobs across the vehicle manufacturing, battery and charging industries by that year.
Photo by: Tim Levin/InsideEVs
Having a vibrant EV industry isn’t just about selling more clean cars or cutting planet-warming emissions. America’s competitiveness is at stake too, said Peter Slowik, the ICCT’s U.S. passenger vehicles lead and a co-author of the report.
“Long term, we will get to 100% [zero-emission vehicles]. And the question is: Who will be the winners and who will be the losers?,” he told InsideEVs. “When we do get to 100%, are U.S. vehicles going to be a bunch of imports from European automakers and China automakers and automakers from elsewhere? Or will we be able to preserve or even increase our market share?”
The ICCT still expects U.S. electric car sales to grow—albeit more modestly—in a no-IRA scenario, with demand propelled mainly by declining vehicle costs and technological improvements. “There will be no turning back, even if incentives went away,” Slowik said.
But the rest of the world isn’t sitting still. EV sales globally are projected to skyrocket, no matter who sits in the White House or how they feel about electric cars.
This year, the IEA expects a record 20 million plug-in car sales worldwide, accounting for around 25% of overall sales. By 2030, that number should hit 40 million—28 million EVs and 12 million PHEVs—or over 40% of global sales.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
