IEA Global EV Outlook 2025 Shows US Falling Further Behind On Electric Cars

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A funny thing happens when a nation decides to sit in the corner and suck its thumb like a pouting two-year-old. The rest of the world continues to move forward, just as water in a river flows around a rock. The US had a robust policy in place to promote the adoption of electric cars and it used all the tools conservatives say they like — carrots like financial incentives instead of sticks like mandates.

But it didn’t make any difference to the lunatics in the current administration who are hell-bent on extracting and burning more coal, more methane, and more oil. Just this week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation that would eliminate billions of dollars in unspent funds provided by the IRA and speeding up permitting for fossil fuel projects.

“We’re considering a reconciliation bill that picks winners and losers, and elevates expensive, outdated and inefficient sources like coal over cheap, American-made energy like solar, wind and storage,” said Representative  Scott Peters, a Democrat from California, according to a report by Poltico.

The World Won’t Wait

In it EV Global Outlook 2025 report, the International Energy Agency says that 20% of new cars sold worldwide in 2024 were electric, a definition that includes plug-in hybrids as well as battery-electric cars. In all, 17 million of them were purchased globally in 2024. 1.6 million were sold in the US, which is nothing to sneeze at, as it represents about 10% of US new car sales. That good news is tempered somewhat by the fact that the year-on-year increase was only a quarter of what it was the previous year.

Bloomberg Hyperdrive took notice of that weak sales growth and moaned, “In short, America is going to go from eating China’s dust but at least trying to catch up, to steering itself right out of the EV race.” Following the most recent US  election, BloombergNEF also lowered its estimate for EV sales growth in the US, projecting EVs would account for only a third of US new car sales. Prior to that election it was predicting US EV sales would be nearly half of all new car sales by 2030.The IEA now expects battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to account for just 20% or so of US sales in 2030. Only a year ago, the agency was projecting EVs would exceed 50% of sales by then.

The problem is the failed US administration is doing everything in its power to hold back the EV revolution. Many members of Congress are more concerned with kissing the ass of the so-called president (who openly brags that he likes it when they do) than representing the people who elected them. Suffering from the MAGA broke mind virus, they are determined to eliminate the $7500 federal EV sales incentive, and quash the manufacturing and production credits contained in the IRA for manufacturing EV batteries and electric cars.

The irony is that most of that money was scheduled to flow to so-called red states, but now the jobs and tax revenues those funds would have made possible are in danger of being lost. It will be interesting to see how those governors are going to explain to voters in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama why they are standing in unemployment lines instead of earning good wages at the factories they thought were coming.

In addition, the lunatics in Congress are frothing at the mouth at the prospect of punishing California for daring to set tougher exhaust emissions standards than required by federal law. The crazies are constantly beating their gums about states rights, but it turns out they are only interested in states rights when it suits their convenience. Otherwise it is “do as we say, not as we do.” What a pack of festering pustules these MAGAlomaniacs are!

Electric Cars & Federal Policy

Bloomberg Hyperdrive contributor Craig Trudell wrote this week that the IEA 2025 report caused him to think of something Ford CEO Jim Farley said at an industry conference back in February. “President Trump has talked a lot about making our US auto industry stronger, bringing more production here, more innovation,” Farley said. He added that if the administration actually achieved it goals, it would be one of its “signature accomplishments.” Then Farley said what was really on his mind. “So far what we’re seeing is a lot of cost, a lot of chaos.”

Trudell added his own thoughts. “For an administration that indeed has made a lot of noise about America’s car sector and its standing in global trade, the cost and chaos Ford’s CEO described comes at a highly inopportune time. The IEA notes that China accounts for by far the biggest share of EV exports — the almost 1.25 million electric cars the country shipped to other nations last year was 40 percent of the global total. All of the European Union exported just over 800,000 EVs.

“Trump may be able to slow the momentum of EVs in America, but for the rest of the world, the train has left the station. The IEA sees more than 20 million electric cars being bought this year, more than a quarter of global vehicle sales. The share will exceed 40 percent by the end of the decade, the agency predicts. In other words, an already-vulnerable US auto industry looks all the more exposed in the midst of a transformation that’s only accelerating. Instead of stepping on the accelerator, Washington seems to want manufacturers in the country to U-turn.”

Trudell’s summary should be a warning to all. Choosing to go backwards instead of forward is a fool’s game and will only lead to the US becoming irrelevant on the world stage. The IEA report shows that China continues to be the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the world. Today it makes about 70% of all new electric cars and trucks in the world. It is poised to become like Norway, a country where nearly all new vehicles are electric by the end of this year. Already, 10% of all cars on the road in China are electric.

Conquering The Global Market

But that is not the whole story. Chinese manufacturers are targeting export sales in many countries around the world. Recently, I saw Changan, Great Wall, and GAC dealerships on Saint Maarten in the Caribbean. US manufacturers would like to sell more of their products in foreign markets, but no one will buy them if they are not electric. It will be like trying to sell vehicles that need to be started with a hand crank after the rest of the world has discovered the wonders of electric motors and the miracle of the Bendix spring.

Has China invested heavily in battery and electric vehicle production? Yes it has. But the US also has invested heavily in fossil fuels and nuclear power. Americans are always beating their breasts and declaiming about how America is best at this, that, or the other thing. But the country has developed an aversion to doing the hard work needed to compete on the world stage. Instead it wants to punish every other nation for eating its lunch while it slumbered.

The IEA report is an unblinking look into the future. If its conclusions are correct, it shows a United States sitting on the sidelines and blaming others instead of recognizing where it failed and taking bold action to correct its deficiencies. That is not going to make America great again; it is going to make America irrelevant to the rest of the world.