[Dormant] Electric Vehicles

Despite all the ideological and political divisions surrounding electric vehicles, Americans are driving home battery-powered vehicles in droves.

However, things are looking rather bleak on the other side of the Atlantic. Staunch opposition to Europe's proposed emissions regulations, a trade war with China and some major hiccups from homegrown automakers like Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Stellantis are slowing EV adoption in the continent.

When you isolate yourself from the deafening political noise around electric cars and the terrible headlines in financial papers, things start appearing more clear.

Americans are driving home battery-powered cars in droves. They're purchasing more EVs than buyers in Europe, which has over the years been friendlier to EVs but has now run into some troubles. In some ways, though, this is a reversion to the natural order: The U.S. market had about 3 million more sales last year than the EU market, so our market is considerably larger. That it lagged behind Europe in EV sales for so long was a sign of higher consumer resistance, among other factors.

Automakers in the U.S. sold a record 344,000 electric cars in the third quarter, according to data analytics firm New AutoMotive. That's almost at par with Cox Automotive, which estimated 346,309 EV sales in the country between July and September.