China is dominating the world EV market while opportunities exist for US automakers in other countries.
In the first quarter of 2025, EVs accounted for 9.6 percent of all new light-duty vehicle sales, down from 10.9 percent in the final quarter of 2024. Still, year-over-year sales rose by 9 percent, underscoring a market in transition—buoyed by product variety but hindered by inadequate infrastructure.
There are record 149 electric vehicle (EV) models now available from sedans and crossovers to pickups and vans.
The quarterly Get Connected Electric Vehicle Report, released by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, reveals a complex landscape. Internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles saw their market share fall 4.6 percentage points compared to a year ago—part of a longer-term decline of 23 points since 2016.
Meanwhile, hybrid vehicles gained traction, with their share increasing by 4.3 percentage points in Q1. Yet, despite over 374,000 new EV registrations this quarter and an all-time high of 6.2 million EVs on U.S. roads, public charging infrastructure continues to lag: only one new charger was installed for every 42 new electric vehicles registered. At current rates, nearly 500 public chargers must be added daily through 2030 to meet federal benchmarks.
As the electric vehicle transition accelerates, the price tag for the infrastructure required to support it is becoming clearer—and steeper. A new analysis from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that between $53 billion and $127 billion in capital investment will be needed by 2030 to build out the charging network necessary to support 33 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads. Most of that cost, experts say, will fall not on governments or utilities, but on consumers and commercial property owners, who will foot the bill for installing chargers at homes, apartment complexes, and workplaces.
The largest share of that spending—up to $72 billion—is expected to go toward residential charging infrastructure, including basic Level 1 outlets and more powerful Level 2 stations. Publicly accessible fast chargers, a critical component of long-distance travel, account for another $27 to $44 billion, while community-based Level 2 public chargers are projected to require $5 to $11 billion. These estimates do not include the potentially substantial costs of upgrading the electrical grid or integrating distributed energy resources like rooftop solar or battery storage. The wide range in estimates reflects the evolving costs of hardware, labor, and site-specific installation challenges.
Yet beyond the cost, questions of equity and access loom large. By the end of the first quarter of 2025, 25 percent of all public EV chargers in the United States were located in California, home to just under a third of the nation’s registered EVs. That leaves vast swaths of the country—particularly rural and lower-income areas—underserved by charging infrastructure. As federal and state incentives taper and EV ownership spreads beyond coastal cities, the challenge of building a truly national charging network is increasingly shifting from policymakers to homeowners, landlords, and business owners—and their checkbooks.
Globally, the U.S. trails behind. China now dominates electric vehicle production, accounting for 70 percent of global output and more than 11 million EV sales in 2024—nearly seven times the U.S. total of 1.6 million. With more than 90 percent of rare earth element processing and 85 percent of battery cell manufacturing based in China, the balance of power in the EV economy is increasingly tilting eastward.
Countries representing the lion’s share of U.S. vehicle exports are moving rapidly to phase out internal combustion engines. The European Union and the United Kingdom have each committed to banning the sale of new gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by 2035, while Canada, the largest export destination for American vehicles, is pursuing a similar deadline.
According to the U.S. International Trade Administration, 69 percent of the 1.46 million vehicles the United States exported in 2024 were sent to nations with binding electric vehicle (EV) mandates. Of those, over 900,000 went to markets that will outright ban non-electric vehicles within the next decade.
Meanwhile, China has surged ahead in the race to dominate global EV markets. In 2024, Chinese automakers exported 1.25 million EVs—nearly one-fifth of their 5.86 million total vehicle exports—and now supply 60 percent of Europe’s imported electric vehicles. According to Goldman Sachs, China’s EV production capacity is on track to reach 25 million units annually by the end of 2025, with output growing by nearly 4 million vehicles each year. This boom is fueled by aggressive domestic investment and a deeply integrated supply chain that includes more than 90 percent of the world’s rare earth processing and 85 percent of battery cell manufacturing.
In contrast, the U.S. is playing catch-up. While American automakers, battery manufacturers, and suppliers have committed more than $130 billion toward vehicle electrification—supporting an estimated 110,000 new jobs—the scale of global competition is formidable.
The U.S. auto industry still supports over 10 million jobs, and increasing EV exports could generate significant employment growth. But experts warn that unless domestic EV manufacturing scales rapidly, the U.S. risks losing ground not only in exports, but in its ability to influence the future of the auto industry—a future that will be electric, and increasingly defined by foreign policy, trade dynamics, and global supply chain control.
The report calls for a robust policy and investment response to fortify domestic EV production and supply chains, warning that without decisive action, the United States may struggle to maintain its footing in a rapidly electrifying global auto industry.