Reports of the Death of EVs Are Greatly Exaggerated

We know it’s going to be a tough year for fully electric vehicles. 2026 brings with it the absence of tax credits that helped to make EVs cost-competitive with combustion cars and cheap oil to demotivate drivers from switching away from gasoline, factors that have cast a gloom over the upcoming year. And according to one of the world’s biggest automotive suppliers, it’s going to be a tough decade.

Bosch, the German industrial colossus, makes components for both gas and electric cars while also selling refrigerators, power drills, and parts for just about every kind of machine in your life. At CES in Las Vegas earlier this month, the company delivered an ugly prognosis for pure EVs. It predicts that by 2035, 70% of the vehicles sold in the United States still will come with a combustion engine of some kind.

A lot of wiggle room lives within that statement. It did not say, for instance, that seven of 10 cars sold in 2035 will still be gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks that barely top 20 miles per gallon on the highway. Instead, the wording allows for a variety of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs) — the kind whose on-board gas engine is there to recharge the battery that sends power to the electric motors — that are more climate-friendly than traditional internal combustion engines.

Even so, the Bosch declaration turns the electric optimism of the recent past on its head. Not so long ago, 2035 was the date by which both the state of California and the European Union were to ban the sale of gas cars entirely. Both places are reconsidering their stances as the 2030s approach and EVs face political and economic headwinds. Automakers are adjusting to the new reality in turn by scaling back their electrification goals. For America’s enormous market of full-size pickups, for example, EREVs have become the new hot topic as expensive, fully electric trucks failed to make a big dent.

Thus the negative forecast. But there’s reason to believe the future won’t, in fact, be quite so combustion-dependent, and that the reality of 2035 lies somewhere between Bosch’s prediction and the broken dream of complete electrification.

Here in California, that 30/70 split is the stuff of the present, not the future. The state hit a record in the third quarter of 2025, with 29.1% of new car sales being zero emissions vehicles. That number carries some caveats, most importantly that it coincided with America’s rush to buy EVs before the expiration of the federal tax credit, which pushed EV sales to new heights. (EV sales sank, predictably, at the end of last year once the same slate of vehicles effectively cost $7,500 more overnight.)

Still, as America’s biggest automotive market, the car-mad Golden State traditionally has tremendous pull in deciding the direction of the industry in America — one big reason the Trump administration has launched legal attacks against its pollution rules that push carmakers toward more efficient vehicles. And even with the sour narrative for EVs in 2026, the electric market here isn’t going anywhere, not when gas prices remain among the nation’s highest and the pervasiveness of electric cars has long since pushed EVs past the unfamiliarity barrier that makes people distrust a new technology. Thriving markets abroad and in pockets of the U.S. mean the legacy automakers won’t turn away from EVs entirely, not even as Detroit giants GM and Ford anticipate billions of dollars of losses from resetting their business plans to keep up with Trump’s fossil fuels love affair.

In addition, the conditions of today aren’t the conditions of tomorrow (and I’m not just talking about the possibility that a different regime will come to power in America sometime in the next decade). The death of the EV tax credit felt like a huge blow given that electric cars have long struggled with affordability. As we’ve noted, however, this year marks the arrival of many new models in the $30,000 range that come close to competing directly with gas. If battery production costs continue to shrink, dragging EV prices down with them, then those trends will push back against the economic factors that are pushing down EV adoption.

A lot can change with charging in a decade, too. When I bought my Tesla Model 3 seven years ago, it was really the only choice — Tesla’s already-decent Supercharger network made it possible to own its EV as our only vehicle, something I couldn’t say for anything else on the market. In 2026, electric vehicles by a variety of manufacturers come with Tesla’s NACS plug as their native standard, giving them access to a host of Tesla charging stations. Charging depots of all kinds continue to pop up even with the Trump administration's attempts to kill funding for them. The potential anxiety for new drivers continues to drop, and will be even lower by 2035 as the charger map fills in.

Still, there’s little doubt that some drivers who would have or could have chosen a fully electric vehicle in the coming years will settle for some kind of hybrid instead, especially if they perceive the cost math to be easier on the combustion side. That still counts for something, especially if that hybrid purchase displaces a pure fossil fuel-burner. But the advantages of driving electric will become more familiar to millions of Americans as more of their friends and neighbors opt in.

As for EV drivers themselves, more than 90% say they’ll never return to gas-burning cars after experiencing the EV life. Add it all up and there’s every reason to believe that, while EVs won’t take over America by 2035, they won’t quit at a 30% share, either.