A few years ago it looked like things would be mostly up and to the right for electric cars in America. Car companies were investing billions. Tax credits were doing their thing. There were bound to be stumbles, sure, but generally the odds looked strong for vastly more Americans to be plugging in by the end of the decade.
Then President Trump came into office for a second time and started breaking things. A new, wide-ranging report from BloombergNEF on the future of the global electric car industry surveys the damage.
“This is the second consecutive year where we have reduced both our near-term and long-term passenger EV adoption outlook,” researchers wrote in the company’s 2026 Electric Vehicle Outlook, published in June. “Full withdrawal of federal regulatory support for electrification in the U.S. is the biggest factor.”
Photo by: InsideEVs
In 2024, BloombergNEF projected that, by 2030, 47.5% of cars sold in the U.S.—nearly half—would be either fully electric or plug-in hybrid. It slashed that forecast in 2025 and again this year. Now it expects that around 17% of U.S. car sales will have a plug by the end of the decade.
What’s more, BNEF expects the U.S. EV market to shift into reverse in the short term, with the plug-in share of sales landing at 8.4% and 9% in 2026 and 2027. Only in 2028 will the market catch back up to where it was last year, the company says.
Much of the gloomier outlook has to do with regulation, or the lack thereof. In the U.S., much EV growth has been driven by government policies, and many of those have been fully vaporized or severely hobbled over the last year and change. Last year, Congress gutted existing fuel economy rules and sunsetted the $7,500 EV tax credit several years early.
“Then early this year they put out the proposal for the new fuel economy rule,” said Huiling Zhou, an electric vehicles analyst at BNEF. “Essentially, under that new fuel economy rule, very little electrification is required.”
Another big driver of this year’s downgrade, Zhou said, had to do with a climate policy known as the California waiver. Last year, the Senate ripped up the state’s ability to set its own emissions rules that are stricter than the EPA’s. One such rule would have required auto companies to ratchet up their plug-in sales until they hit 100% of the market in 2035. Now that’s off the books, though California—plus many of the other states that adopted the state’s playbook—are challenging the decision in court.
Unburdened by regulations and seeing lower EV demand without the tax credit, car companies are backtracking. And that’s hurting the outlook too, Zhou said.
Manufacturers have yanked a slew of electric models from the market, including the Volkswagen ID.4, Nissan Ariya, Hyundai Ioniq 6, Volvo EX30, and Ford F-150 Lightning. Stellantis pulled all of its plug-in hybrids, like electrified versions of the Jeep Wrangler and Chrysler Pacifica minivan. Honda’s “0-Series” sedan and SUV are some of many planned EVs that have been delayed or scrapped entirely.
“Definitely those major model cancellations affect the overall picture,” Zhou said. “The near term forecast is still largely depending on the available models.”
Each cancellation takes with it some potential sales. And although a large number of new and impressive EVs are launching soon—from the BMW iX5 to the Jeep Wagoneer extended-range EV to the Slate pickup—the net effect is a drop in sales over time, Zhou said.
Over the longer term, more competitive EV prices and lower total cost of ownership will help drive plug-in car sales higher in America, BNEF says. But for now, price is a sore spot too. Electric cars are about 25% more expensive in the U.S. than internal-combustion ones, Zhou said, the highest differential among the regions BNEF studied. High battery prices and R&D costs are big contributors, but there’s another culprit that gets talked about less.
“There’s barely any competition, or very little competition in the U.S. right now,” she said. “If you look at markets like China, very intense competition is driving prices down.”
Zoom out beyond the U.S., and it’s clear that America is increasingly a laggard on the global stage. BNEF projects that plug-in car sales will hit 23 million this year, making up over 27% of cars sold worldwide. The share of EVs globally hits 38% in 2030 in BNEF’s forecast. And while China, the UK, Germany, Australia, France, and South Korea are all on pace to exceed the global average by then too, the U.S. will be stuck at less than half that if things don’t change.
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