EV adoption hits the gas and some roadblocks

The Future. The EV market is on a weird ride right now — sales are high, but the customer is changing. Additionally, financial burdens and political associations are complicated things even more. The road ahead for EVs may have more starts and stops than a teenager learning to drive stick… but it’ll be moving forward. That may mean a focus on building cheaper sedans or a temporary pit stop in the world of hybrids.

Plug-in problems
The EV market is somehow doing both great and terribly right now, reports The Verge.

• The Good. EVs will likely account for 9% of all cars sold this year (a 50% year-over-year increase) at about 1 million vehicles. Globally, 14 million will be sold this year, driven mostly by cheap options in China.
• The Bad. Early adopters of EVs now have them, so automakers have to shift to winning over the average driver, who’s more cost-conscious and may be overwhelmed to learn an entirely new system (chargers, range, etc.). That’s why companies like Tesla, Ford, and GM are slowing their production plans.
• The Ugly. Automakers misread the tea leaves by focusing their EV plans on trucks and SUVs, which require bigger batteries — an expensive problem with supply chain issues and China-import bans. And, domestically, EVs are becoming strangely political.

That’s a lot to navigate, but both automakers and governments are pretty determined to make transportation more sustainable in the long run.

So, one way or another, the world is going to become more electric… just not as quickly as some expected.