The Hyundai Ioniq 5 was one of the top EV sellers on the market in 2025. (Green Wave)

Jesse Lore

On the one hand, it is easy to despair about what is happening in clean energy in general, and electric vehicles (EVs) specifically in the U.S. as we enter 2026.

The Trump administration, abetted by the Republican-controlled congress, has eliminated almost every government incentive and effort to shift U.S. energy consumption away from fossil fuels, while working to dismantle every federal program that studies or reports on climate change. Notwithstanding Trump’s bizarre Tesla commercial he shot on the White House lawn with Elon Musk a year ago, his administration has made good on campaign promises to kill electric vehicles, and after spending the first half of the year retracting and restricting National EV Infrastructure (NEVI) “charging funds” from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, on September 30, 2025, the EV point of sale tax credits ended for both new and used electric vehicles.

But despair not! 2025 was an absolute banner year for clean transportation both worldwide and in the U.S.

Let me give you some quick facts about EV adoption. One in four new vehicles sold worldwide last year was electric (21% battery electric and 4% plugin hybrid electric.); Q3, the biggest quarter of the year for EV sales in the U.S. saw battery EVs taking 12% market share – a huge record; market share for new EVs sold for the year should eclipse 10%, which represents 25% growth year over year. The grand total number of new and used electric vehicles, when all the taillights are counted, may exceed two million cars and trucks sold in America, according to Cox Automotive. Worldwide, the number is over 20 million. And as ever more people go EV, they say they are never going back. According to a study by Kelley Blue Book in 2024, less than one in ten EV buyers say they will ever buy a gas car again. If you know someone who owns an EV, you know what they will do: talk incessantly about how much they love their car.

There is also good news on EV affordability. While new EVs continue to be more expensive than their gas counterparts, that gap narrowed significantly at the tail end of the EV tax credits. The average transaction price (ATP) for all new cars in the U.S. was $50,080 in September, and EVs were $58,124; however, after the $7,500 tax credit, the average price came down to $50,624 – only 1% higher than the overall average. For used vehicles, an Edmunds report from May 2025 found that the ATP for three-year-old used vehicles surged to $33,572, while the used EV listing price was $35,263. That puts EV pricing within 5% of gas cars on the used vehicle market. And because of steep depreciation on EVs related to federal, state, and local incentives, many models are selling as used vehicles for less than half of their sticker price after coming off a 24-month lease. Even with the elimination of the Inflation Reduction Act’s used vehicle tax credit, there are still 300-mile range cars such as the Hyundai IONIQ 5, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Nissan Ariya, Honda Prologue, and Chevy Equinox EV available with low mileage in the $20,000-$30,000 price range. Chevy Bolts, Hyundai Kona EVs, Kia Niro EVs, and Nissan LEAFs with extended ranges can all be found for under $20,000 and sometimes under $15,000 on dealer lots today. When you factor in the fuel and maintenance savings, which range from $1,000 to $3,000 per year, EVs have finally become less expensive to own, even with a higher purchase price, on a five-year timeline.

There is good news in charging infrastructure, too. In the U.S., about 17,000 new DC fast charging ports and over 25,000 new level 2 charging ports opened to the public. And the majority of this was done by the private sector; the Trump administration halted thousands of EV charging projects last spring and put them into administrative review, so only about 1,000 of the 500,000 stations promised by the NEVI program were built in 2025. The high number of private sector investments into EV fast charging – from fancy chargers like those built by the automaker collaboration Ionna, to companies like Walmart, Shell and Circle K launching their own brands of charging network – proves that there is a strong business case for building products and services for a growing EV market. And the icing on the cake – in June, a federal judge ruled in a suit filed by 14 states that the administration had to release the NEVI funds (which were not cancelled legislatively like the tax credits for vehicles), and in August the Trump administration began to comply.

The future is still uncertain for electric vehicles in the United States, but the legacy of advances in clean transportation over the last three years is still having a positive impact on the overall trend in decarbonizing our light vehicle fleet. Even though the regime in power may be doing their worst to perpetuate reliance on fossil fuels at the behest of their oil company patrons and at the rest of our expense, the truth is clear: electric vehicles are becoming the cheapest way to get from point A to point B, and that means that EV adoption will continue to grow.

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