US crosses the EV tipping point for mass adoption

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Many people of a certain age can recall the first time they held a smartphone. The devices were weird and expensive and novel enough to draw a crowd at parties. Then, less than a decade later, it became unusual not to own one.

That same society-altering shift is happening now with electric vehicles, according to a Bloomberg analysis of adoption rates around the world. The US is the latest country to pass what’s become a critical EV tipping point: 5 per cent of new car sales powered only by electricity. This threshold signals the start of mass adoption, the period when technological preferences rapidly flip, according to the analysis.

An Electric vehicle charging station for home. istock

For the past six months, the US joined Europe and China – collectively the three largest car markets – in moving beyond the 5 per cent tipping point. If the US follows the trend established by 18 countries that came before it, a quarter of new car sales could be electric by the end of 2025. That would be a year or two ahead of most major forecasts.

Why is 5 per cent so important?

Most successful new technologies – electricity, televisions, mobile phones, the internet, even LED lightbulbs – follow an S-shaped adoption curve. Sales move at a crawl in the early-adopter phase, then surprisingly quickly once things go mainstream. (The top of the S curve represents the last holdouts who refuse to give up their old flip phones.)