Majority of voters favor gasoline-car phaseout. But all-electric goal faces tough opposition
WASHINGTON — Electric vehicle (EV) sales grew to 11.3 million units in 2018, more than double its 4.6 million total year earlier.
But the EV market grew by just 1.6 percent in 2018, and by 10 percent since 2018, and EV sales have actually lost market share.
These numbers — which are preliminary, since they are a snapshot of a car-buyer’s annual spending on an electric vehicle rather than actual sales — are not encouraging.
The lack of a clear long-term EV success story is even more evident in the state of Ohio, where new EV sales have slowed, and in the nation, which has seen the EV market grow every year since the first half of 2013.
The market remains small and fragmented, with more than 1,000 models available for customers to choose from. EV sales — which are driven by price but are also helped by the availability of charging stations — accounted for less than 13 percent of total auto sales for 2017, according to the Electric Mobility Report by IHS Markit. That figure dropped to 11 percent in 2018.
“The EV market in this country is like a garden with too many weeds,” said John Helewell, president of IHS Markit, who described the market as “tiny, fragmented, and poorly developed.”
“It’s very difficult to get an EV that’s really affordable and can compete effectively with a gas-powered vehicle,” Helewell said, noting that consumers in some U.S. regions still have to pay for access to charging stations.
EV sales have been gaining traction in Ohio, with more than 476,000 registered vehicles and more than 5,500 new registrations since January 2017.
But Ohio’s EV market has had its own issues