Major Developments in 2024

The United States (U.S.) population continues to rely on vehicles for personal transportation. In 2024, U.S. vehicle travel reached 3,279.1 billion miles— up 1.0% (32.3 billion miles) from the prior year. U.S. electric-drive vehicle sales grew nearly 8% in 2024, reaching 1.57 million units. Overall, 116 Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) models and 39 Hybrid Electric Vehicle what is a (HEV) models were sold, totalling around 3.18 million units.

The U.S. sales of PEVs (i.e., PHEVs and BEVs together) at approximately 1.57 million were close to those of HEVs at approximately 1.61 million. U.S. HEV sales rose 37% to 1.61 million units across 41 models. The top five manufacturers—Toyota, Honda, Ford, Hyundai, and Kia—dominated the market. PHEVs were offered in 43 models by 12 manufacturers, with the top five models making up 47% of sales. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) saw 73 models from 17 manufacturers, and the top seven models, including Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3, represented 58% of total BEV sales. PHEV sales rose 9% to 321,774 units.

In the EV market development area, Toyota announced plans to invest $1.3 billion in its Kentucky plant for production of a new three-row electric sport utility vehicle for the U.S. Volkswagen will invest up to $5B in Rivian to develop a next-gen EV architecture. Natron Energy plans to build a $1.4B, 24GWh Na-ion battery factory, Edgecombe, and Lyten will invest $1B on building lithium sulfur batteries in Nevada. In the charging infrastructure area, Tesla opened its charging network to other models of EVs.

Also, California surpassed 150,000 chargers statewide. At Federal level, the U.S. announced $521 million in grants on EV charging infrastructure, but slowed down the phase-out of existing rules that give automakers extra fuel-economy credit for the EVs currently being sold.10 It also announced several multi-billion loan awards to expand U.S. manufacture of EV batteries. At state level, Maine announced plans to add 175 MW/350 MWh of battery storage to its electrical grid15 and California approved $1.4B to deploy 17,000 EV chargers and a hydrogen fueling infrastructure.

Demonstration Projects

To enable the successful deployment of EVs at scale, a holistic approach is required for the vehicle, charging infrastructure, and electric grid. The key components of the charging ecosystem include controls, high-voltage power electronics, interoperability, wireless and other advanced high-power charging technologies, and integration and optimization with the grid and Distributed Energy Resources such as stationary storage. The goal of the VTO Grid and Infrastructure Activity within its Electrification program is to identify system pathways and conduct research to facilitate the development and harmonisation of robust, interoperable, and cyber-secure electric vehicle charging and grid infrastructure that supports EVs at scale and incorporates advanced charging technologies.

Current demonstration projects:

• Kenworth Truck Company is developing a megawatt-class wireless charging system for a long-range, heavy-duty battery-electric truck, capable of delivering a full charge in just 30 minutes.
• Volvo Technology of America is using vehicle and operations data with machine learning to boost the range and reduce operating costs of battery-electric Class 8 trucks driving over 250 miles per day through intelligent energy management.
• Exelon and BGE are demonstrating utility-managed smart charging to optimize EV charging patterns and support grid efficiency through intelligent load management.
• ABB Inc. is developing eMosaic, a smart charging platform that enables grid-informed EV charging, designed to support grid operations rather than strain them through intelligent energy management solutions.
• WAVE Inc. is developing wireless extreme fast charging systems for electric trucks, enabling rapid, high-power charging without physical connectors.
• The EVs@Scale Consortium (NREL, ANL, ORNL) is developing eCHIP, a high-power, DC-based, interoperable charging hub platform designed for megawatt-scale hardware development and grid-integrated testing to support scalable EV charging infrastructure.
• ORNL and Stellantis are developing a misalignment-tolerant, three-phase wireless fast charging system for EVs, including a 50kW WEVC prototype and reference design for DC-to-DC power conversion stages.

Outlook

DOE publishes some of its EV market projections in the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) yearly publication entitled Annual Energy Outlook (AEO). The 2025 AEO Reference case represents its best assessment of U.S. and world energy markets through 2050, using key assumptions intended to provide a baseline for exploring long-term trends. EIA based the economic and demographic trends on the current views of leading economic forecasters and demographers – and assuming improvements in known energy production, delivery, and consumption technologies (but no changes in current laws and regulations). The AEO2025 Reference case, which serves as the baseline case, assesses how the U.S. energy markets could operate under laws and regulations in effect as of December 2024 and under historically observed technological growth assumptions. It is projected that alternative fuel vehicles (which include BEVs and PHEVs) will approach 70% new light-duty vehicle sales in the U.S. in 2050.

Declines in EV component costs, along with federal and state policies that provide incentives for EV purchases or require minimum sales, are used in estimating EV sales growth. It assumed that the costs of battery materials, primarily consisting of critical minerals, will remain constant through 2050. The projected manufacturing cost declines increase driving range and lower EV purchase prices through 2050. In other projections, forecasts from Bloomberg New Energy Finance expect global sales of light, medium, and heavy duty PEVs to continue growing. Per those forecasts, passenger EV sales would continue rising sharply in the years ahead. Technology changes are at the core of this transition as battery prices have fallen dramatically over the last decade.