The electric-vehicle revolution may be on shakier ground than you think

Republican plans to scrap nearly all federal support for electric vehicles could kneecap the nascent industry, auto industry experts say, just when more Americans are considering buying an EV and car companies are planning big investments.

“Everything that’s happening politically couldn’t have happened at a worse time from the point of view of EV adoption,” Ed Kim, president and chief analyst at the car market research firm AutoPacific, said in an interview.

Ending federal EV tax credits, weakening tailpipe pollution rules and slashing funding for charging stations – as President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have proposed – would slow EV sales and trigger a wave of factory shutdowns and canceled investments, according to energy policy and auto industry researchers. It would also lead to higher planet-warming emissions, they added.

The biggest source of greenhouse pollution in the United States is transportation – mostly from light-duty cars and trucks, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Experts say switching from gas and diesel engines to electric vehicles is the best way to limit the damage from climate change, which is expected to make people sicker, farms less productive and countries poorer if left unchecked.

These moves would delay, but not prevent, the gradual shift from gas-powered cars and trucks to EVs in the United States. Even without any government support, analysts say electric vehicles will continue to eat away at sales of gas-powered cars. But the tipping point when EVs break into the mainstream U.S. car market is moving further away, experts say, and could have far-reaching effects on the economy and environment.

Emissions up, jobs down

The Trump administration has already signaled that it will scrap carbon regulations on car and truck pollution, and Republicans in Congress are considering axing federal tax credits for Americans who buy or lease electric vehicles.

Those policies alone could shrink U.S. EV sales 40% in 2030 and eliminate the need for all planned EV assembly factories and put up to half of existing EV factories at risk of shutting down, according to a recent analysis from Princeton University. Between one-third and two-thirds of battery factories running by the end of this year would be at risk of closure. Most of those plants are concentrated in Republican-led districts in the South and Midwest.

“If you pull the rug out from under the industry, things are going to collapse, and a lot of those investments are going to be canceled,” said Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor of engineering at Princeton University and the author of the report.

Automakers were already pulling back on EV investments in response to slower-than-expected sales last year.

Tesla killed its plans for a new, cheap EV model after sales slumped in 2024.

As Tesla CEO Elon Musk leads the Trump administration’s mass firing of federal workers, protesters are picketing and sometimes violently attacking Tesla dealerships.

General Motors – the second-biggest U.S. electric automaker, which has vowed to sell only electric light-duty vehicles by 2035 – delayed plans for a new EV factory, sold its stake in one of three battery factories it built with LG and delayed the release of a new electric Buick last year. Ford, Nissan and Volkswagen have also cut spending and delayed or canceled EV releases, and Volvo and Mercedes-Benz abandoned plans to sell only electric cars and trucks by 2030.

Meanwhile, Trump has also frozen funding for building charging stations through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and other electric-vehicle funding through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

If Trump and Congress permanently abolish that funding – in addition to ending tax credits for EV sales, charging and battery manufacturing and blocking California’s ability to set its own vehicle emissions rules – cars and trucks would emit 49 million extra tons of carbon pollution in 2030, according to a separate recent analysis from Harvard University. That’s about as much pollution as 115 gas power plants emit in a year, according to the EPA.

“Slowing EV adoption increases emissions,” said Elaine Buckberg, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and former chief economist at GM, adding that it makes it harder “to forestall climate change and its effects.”

Although the two reports consider slightly different scenarios, they reach similar conclusions: Jenkins predicts that by 2030, there could be 8.3 million fewer EVs and plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads than there would be if federal EV policies were left in place, while Buckberg predicts 9.9 million fewer EVs would be in use.

Neither analysis factored in the impact of tariffs, which are expected to raise the price of buying a car by thousands of dollars. It’s hard to predict the effect on the EV industry, Jenkins said, in part because Trump’s tariff threats keep changing. Higher prices would probably make Americans think twice about buying any type of new car – but since EVs are more likely to be assembled in the U.S. than gas-powered cars, they might not be hurt as badly by trade barriers, Jenkins said.

Existing trade barriers with China – set by Trump and raised by former president Joe Biden – are already keeping cheaper Chinese EVs off American roads and raising the price of going electric.

Falling off ‘S-curve’

Countries where EVs catch on – such as Norway, China and Iceland – usually follow a pattern called the “S-curve.” Sales start slowly, but eventually they hit a tipping point and take off after the industry switches from reaching a small group of early adopters to breaking into the mass market.

Auto industry experts have been looking for signs that the U.S. market is reaching that tipping point. Last year, EVs made up 8.7% of new car sales, according to Kelley Blue Book. It’s hard to say if the market was set to take off: Although EV sales have risen steadily, their momentum slowed in 2024.

Either way, experts say that tipping point will be further away in the United States if the federal government pulls its support for the industry. EV leaders such as Norway and China helped their electric-car industries get off the ground with subsidies and incentives.

“It is clear based on the evidence that there is no inflection point, no significant market growth, without strong policy support,” said Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California at Davis. He added that U.S. EV sales will probably continue to grow “because of the huge investment done in the last couple of years, but it’s not going to be an S-curve in any way.”

Killing the federal tax credit for buying or leasing EVs would be the single biggest blow to the industry, according to the Harvard analysis. The credit is especially important as EV sellers try to break into the mass market, where car buyers are more price sensitive.

“That’s the time when you need stronger incentives,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds, a car shopping and review website. Early adopters buying luxury EVs might be willing to pay higher prices, she said, “but the second wave of buyers needs more convincing.”