Germany, traditionally one of Europe's strongest EV markets, faced significant setbacks in 2024 when the abrupt removal of government subsidies for EV purchases at the end of 2023 had a pronounced negative impact on sales. The market didn't slow gradually. It collapsed. One day the government backed EVs with generous incentives. The next day those incentives vanished, and buyers who'd been considering electric vehicles walked away. This policy shift underscored the critical role of government incentives in maintaining market stability and growth, with the German market's struggles highlighting the sensitivity of EV adoption rates to changes in policy.
The contrast with Norway is instructive. In 2025, Norway expects to hit its target of 100 percent of new car sales being electric, with that number at 88 percent in 2024 and rising. The learning from Norway is that not one singular policy works, but that a continued and consistent action plan is needed to drive the change and create consumer confidence. Norway committed decades ago. The policies stayed stable. Buyers knew what to expect. Manufacturers knew where to invest. Infrastructure followed demand. The entire ecosystem developed because nobody kept changing the rules.
Everywhere else is doing the opposite. The EU spent years insisting on a 2035 ban for new combustion engine sales, then quietly dropped it to a 90 percent reduction instead. Britain maintained its 2030 deadline while its largest trading partner backed away. In April 2025, the UK also removed its tax breaks for electric cars after already ending subsidies and grants for private cars in 2022. The message to buyers: we're not sure about this either, but you should definitely spend tens of thousands on an EV anyway.
America's policy whiplash is even more dramatic. In the summer of 2021, then President Joe Biden announced he was setting an ambitious target of 50 percent of new vehicles sold in the US being battery powered by 2030, declaring there's no turning back. Now President Trump is trying to turn back, saying in his inaugural address we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry. The US administration has initiated a rollback of federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards by proposing to revert to the 2022 baseline, which would require only minimal annual efficiency increases. Four years of policy in one direction, instant reversal the moment power changes hands.
The damage to consumer confidence is measurable. The percentage of Americans who either own or express interest in owning an electric vehicle decreased from 59 percent in 2023 to 51 percent in 2024 and remains at the reduced level today. The most eager electric vehicle supporters, those who say they own one or are seriously considering it, declined to 11 percent this year from 16 percent in 2024. That's not a market cooling naturally. That's buyers watching politicians argue and deciding to wait.
Infrastructure confidence follows the same pattern. Overall, 56 percent of Americans are not too or not at all confident that the US will build the necessary infrastructure to support large numbers of EVs. Republicans express strikingly low confidence in EV infrastructure, with only 6 percent extremely or very confident the US will build the necessary infrastructure, while 76 percent are not confident. When politicians spend more time fighting about EVs than building charging stations, buyers notice.
Despite favorable market conditions, regulatory and policy developments are exerting increasing pressure on the EV sector's future, with updates introducing stricter requirements while creating uncertainty for manufacturers planning future vehicle lineups. Manufacturers need seven year product cycles. Politicians change policies every election. The math doesn't work. Automakers invest billions developing EVs based on targets politicians announce, then those same politicians abandon the targets before the vehicles reach production.
Without consistent support mechanisms, consumer demand can wane, slowing the transition to sustainable transportation and placing additional pressure on automakers to offset declining sales. The cycle becomes self reinforcing. Policy uncertainty kills demand. Weak demand justifies policy reversals. Reversals further damage confidence. Repeat until everyone gives up.
The oil industry understands this perfectly. The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers poured millions into an extensive lobbying and ad campaign targeting battleground states, criticizing the Biden administration's policies as a gas car ban and arguing that regulations will reduce consumer choice. They're not wrong about the political vulnerability. When governments mandate transitions faster than infrastructure or consumer readiness supports, the backlash writes itself.
The frustrating part is that none of this addresses whether EVs are actually good vehicles. Technology improves constantly. Prices keep falling. Range increases. Charging gets faster. The vehicles themselves become more compelling every year. But buyers aren't making decisions based solely on vehicle quality. They're factoring in policy risk. Will the government support EVs next year? Will charging infrastructure materialize? Will subsidies return or vanish? Will resale values collapse if regulations change?
Norway answered those questions with decades of stable policy. Buyers trusted the commitment. Norway is a very wealthy country that was able to invest in tax breaks and large scale charging infrastructure projects, but it also prioritized electric vehicles early and followed through on its ambitions. Everywhere else keeps changing direction, and buyers respond by not buying.
Germany removed subsidies and watched its market crater. The EU dropped its ban and undermined manufacturer planning. Britain maintains aggressive targets while removing incentives. America reverses policy every four years. Each reversal teaches buyers the same lesson: don't be first. Wait and see. Let someone else take the risk of buying a vehicle whose policy support might vanish next year.
Politicians created the EV market through regulation and incentives. Now they're destroying confidence in it through inconsistency and reversals. The technology will survive this. Chinese manufacturers will keep building cheaper, better EVs regardless of what Western politicians decide. But Western buyers, watching their governments argue about whether EVs are mandatory or optional or somewhere in between, are increasingly deciding to just buy another petrol car and revisit the question in a few years when politicians figure out what they actually want. That's not consumer choice. That's consumer exhaustion with political incompetence masquerading as policy.