Assessment of Light-Duty Plug-in Electric Vehicles in the United States, 2010 – 2021

Abstract

The number of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) sold in the United States has consistently grown since 2010, reaching 4% of the light-duty vehicle market in 2021. This report examines how the characteristics for these PEVs has changed over this decade, evaluating range, energy efficiency, costs, and performance. Given the vehicle characteristics, this report estimates miles driven, electricity consumption, petroleum reduction, and greenhouse gas emissions attributable to electric vehicles. This report also explores vehicle manufacturing and battery production, considering supply chains from battery cells to assembly. Over 2.1 million PEVs have been sold in the United States through December 2021, with 1.3 million of these all fully-electric battery electric vehicles (BEV), and 800,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) which have the capability of using gasoline. The sales-weighted average range for BEVs reached 290 miles in 2021 and 28 miles for PHEVs. We estimate that electric vehicles have driven 68 billion miles on electricity since 2010, thereby reducing national gasoline consumption by 0.54% in 2021 and 2.5 billion gallons cumulatively through 2021. In 2021, PEVs used 6.1 terawatt-hours of electricity to drive 19.1 billion miles, offsetting 700 million gallons of gasoline. We find that this fuel switching reduced consumer fuel costs by $1.3 billion in 2021. Since 2010, 65% of PEVs sold in the United States have been assembled domestically, and over 110 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion batteries have been installed in vehicles to date.