Americans want more electric vehicles, but 50% by 2030 looks unlikely

JD Power's data suggests that those car companies are skating to where the puck is, in that interest in EVs is twice as high among people shopping for a premium car versus those looking for a mass-market vehicle. But it notes that the rate of growth among people who say they are "very likely" to buy a new EV has increased by 6 percent for owners of mass-market cars and by only one percent for owners of premium cars, which it says shows that people are receptive to the idea of more-affordable EVs.

Both CarMax and JD Power note the geographic imbalance when it comes to EV adoption in the US. Washington, California, Utah, Arizona, and Oregon saw CarMax's highest EV sales between the start of Q4 2021 and the end of Q1 2022, and JD Power said that sales in coastal states were higher than in the Central US.

JD Power noted that more buyers (31 percent) in the West region were "very likely" to consider an EV, and the South (26 percent) actually beat the Northeast and North Central regions (both 22 percent).

Will the US get left behind?

The good news is that US car buyers are interested in EVs, and that interest is only growing as established OEMs and startups bring more new EV models to market. But it's not a foregone conclusion that we'll get to a 50/50 mix of EVs and vehicles with internal combustion engines by the end of the decade.

The problem starts with the supply of raw materials needed to make EVs' massive lithium-ion battery packs. Time and again, analysts and car company CEOs have warned that there might not be enough batteries to satisfy everyone's product plans. And that will leave the US at a disadvantage because of the penalties that result from not meeting European and Chinese emissions rules. Meanwhile, attempts to tweak US EV incentives failed dismally in the Senate.

To put it another way, if a company only has enough batteries to supply the 70 percent of its demand, it will prioritize those EVs for Europe and China, and then zero-emissions states like California, with the rest of the US ending up as a dumping ground for internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. Without more ambitious state and federal policies to drive higher EV adoption, it's likely that the US will not meet its transportation climate goals.