In 2023, more than 7% of cars sold in the United States were electric vehicles. In some parts of the world, such as Norway, the percentage was a whopping 20%. In California, where I live, almost 60% of people looking for a car in 2021 said they would at least consider getting an EV.
I teach entrepreneurship at the USC Marshall School of Business, and I’ve been studying the EV market for more than a decade. When I ask students, “How long have EVs been commercially available?” most of them will answer five years, or 10, perhaps 20. One person might point to an EV launched by General Motors in the 1990s whose name they can’t seem to remember.
So, what factors help explain why EVs lost the battle for dominant design back then – and why do they appear to have a fighting chance today? One reason for the rise in demand starting in about 2010 is better and more widely available charging infrastructure. In the U.S. in 2009, there were fewer than 500 public and private charging stations nationwide; today, there are more than 100 times as many. That has helped allay consumers’ “range anxiety,” that nagging fear that you’ll run out of “juice” before you can get to a charging station.
As I noted earlier, the coolness factor has a positive impact on EV adoption. Driving a cool car matters because that coolness is visible. And when a car has been uncool for so long, a fundamental – and positive – change in its public perception can substantially affect demand and adoption. Much of our technology, from early word processing software to today’s streaming services, depends on collective social behaviours and how they change – or, in many cases, don’t.