Electric vehicles seem to be having their moment. Seven out of nine star-studded car commercials during this year’s Super Bowl advertised EVs. Sales of EVs in 2021 soared even as the auto industry struggled to produce gas-powered cars. And major automakers have committed to adding more EVs to their fleets over the next decade.
These are promising signs. The Biden Administration set a goal to ensure that half of all new cars sold in 2030 are zero-emissions cars. The Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that the total EVs on U.S. roads will need to number 40 to 50 million by 2030 in order to align with the country’s climate goals. With all of this momentum, the market will surely take it from here and get us there, won’t it? We don’t need subsidies anymore nor do we need to keep spreading the word about why we need an EV revolution, right?
Wrong.
The truth is the market will not take it from here alone. Automakers are still making and selling more gas-powered cars than they are battery-powered EVs. Electric cars make up less than 1% of the 250 million cars, SUVs, and light-duty trucks on the road today in the United States. And automakers still spend way more money advertising combustion-engine cars than they do on advertising EVs. In 2021, the auto industry spent $248 million on advertising EVs and plug-in hybrids compared to the $3.1 BILLION (with a B) it spent on traditional gas-powered cars.
Most Americans don’t even know that some automakers make EVs. Even in California, which has the largest electric car market in the country, awareness of EVs remains low. Let’s not forget about the active push against policies that promote electric vehicles around the country. Some legislators in Virginia, for example, tried to repeal clean car standards just this year.
So while it may seem as if EV awareness and adoption are growing, it’s not growing as rapidly as we need it to. The decisive decade is no longer a decade. The urgency of the climate crisis demands that we move away from our dependence on fossil fuels in the next eight years before the changes cause irreversible harm. We don’t have time to wait for a slow adoption of EVs.
To drive a true EV revolution, we need to overcome remaining challenges, from affordability to infrastructure. We all have unique roles to play to solve these hurdles.
Who are the players (one of them is you) and what do we do?