Just a few date in 2025, tram it's been a rollercoaster of a year. Last week, Tesla got off to a bumpy ride by reporting that, for the first time, America's reigning electric car champion delivered fewer cars globally than the previous year. The automaker delivered 1.789 million vehicles in 2024, down 1.1% from the 1.808 million vehicles delivered in 2023. Tesla stock price dropped 8% after this information.
Then on Friday, more annual sales numbers came out and the electric vehicle story got brighter. General motive said it sold 50% more electric vehicles than last year, with the Chevrolet Equinox EV SUV leading the charge. Honda's Prologue EV, which went on sale in the first half of this year, has sold 33,000 units – something of a breakthrough in the Japanese automaker's electric vehicle launch in the US. Even Fordlast year said it would withdrew from the plan to increase the scale of electricity sales advocates the combination of electric cars, hybrid cars and gasoline cars, has sold more than 50,000 units Mustang Mach-ES.
Global electric vehicle sales likely won't be fully counted until next month, but analysts say that in the US, electric vehicles appear to be on track to reach a reasonable 8% of total sales. sell cars by 2024.
So perhaps the “roller coaster” is a bit dramatic. By many measures, the story of electric vehicle sales — and even the Tesla subplot — is playing out mostly the way everyone in the industry thought it would. During the first part of this decade, “people thought electric vehicles were going to have crazy hockey-stick growth,” said Stephanie Brinley, principal auto analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “That's not realistic. The way we view market developments is more realistic.”
“Everyone is continuing to move forward slowly,” said Corey Cantor, a senior associate covering electric vehicles at BloombergNEF, covering electric cars and their manufacturers.
Faint optimism
No one said the transition to electric vehicles would be easy. Electrification “is one of the biggest changes the auto industry has ever seen—and the auto industry isn't changing,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at the auto website Edmunds. after just one night.”
Production of a completely new powertrain—and Sourcing minerals in the battery to power it—is only half the challenge. Changing people's shopping habits, especially for one of the most expensive purchases they will make in their lives, will be the other half. Given those restrictions, “it's remarkable how much change we've seen,” Drury said.
Even Tesla's bump in the road can be seen as evidence that CEO Elon Musk's automaker is doing something Right. In 2006, Musk published the book “Master plan” That sets out Tesla’s “overarching purpose”: “to help accelerate the transition from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy to a solar power economy, which I believe is the primary but not exclusive solution , sustainable.” Tesla's annual growth challenges partly stem from the fact that the move has worked and there is now more global competition in the electric vehicle sector. Tesla officially lost the title of the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturer to China's BYD last year, which produced about 4,500 more electric vehicles last year. (Tesla still sold more electric vehicles, with Serious support from Chinese buyers, who purchased 8.8% more electric vehicles from the automaker last year than in 2023.)
Whether the global vehicle electrification project stays on track partly depends on policy. In the US, electric vehicle sales skyrocketed in the last quarter of the year. This is probably because consumers have heard about the new Trump administration's plans to eliminate incentives and incentives for electric vehicles. take expert advice to buy a new car while they can still get the subsidy. What will happen in 2025 if those purchase incentives are no longer available?
Even with more sales, 2024 figures seem to show an industry growing as usual. “It's a crazy transition,” said Brinley, an analyst on the transition to electric vehicles. But she is confident: “We will see more adoptions,” she said.