When will EVs become mainstream in the US?
Al Jazeera
Electric vehicle adoption ‘inevitable’ in US, but unclear how fast transition will happen, experts say.
Robert Blake, a tribal citizen of Red Lake Nation in Minnesota, watched for years as fossil fuel companies built pipelines through his homelands.
“How can we continue to resist the fossil fuel infrastructure?” thought Blake, executive director of Native Sun Community Power Development. “That’s when we noticed this grant opportunity for electric vehicle charging stations.”
In 2021, Native Sun received nearly seven million dollars from the US Department of Energy to build a network of charging stations between 23 reservations in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota — states with some of the lowest numbers of charging stations in the country. The project, Electric Nation, also provided 15 electric vehicles to Red Lake Nation and Standing Rock, with more scheduled for delivery.
Globally, the electric car revolution is booming, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency. It predicts that surging demand over the next decade will remake the global auto industry and significantly reduce oil consumption.
In the US, electric vehicles are quickly moving from fringe to mainstream. Although the industry faces near-term challenges, the IEA report predicts almost one in five cars sold in the United States will be electric by 2030. A February report by Clean Investment Monitor found that, despite headlines suggesting a slowdown, 2023 sales in the US were at the top of the range of projections.
