Bloomberg 2025 Electric Vehicle Outlook Report

---

---

Every year, the analysts at BNEF — formerly known as Bloomberg New Energy Finance — peer deep into the misty future and attempt to assess where the EV Revolution is headed. This year’s Electric Vehicle Outlook has just been published and it quite naturally sees some storm clouds on the horizon because of the pigheaded policies of the failed US administration. Bloomberg says its 2025 report draws on its team of specialists around the world and “covers all major vehicle markets. It includes analysis on vehicle sales, oil markets, electricity demand, charging infrastructure, batteries, metals and CO2 emissions.” Here is a graphic that summarizes this year’s findings:

Colin McKerracher, the lead author for Bloomberg Hyperdrive, wrote on June 18, 2025: “Plug-in electric vehicles are set to represent one in four new passenger vehicles sold globally this year, and more than half of the market in China. Much of this is down to pricing. China is the only large market where EVs are, on average, cheaper to buy than comparable combustion cars.”

Whether the EV glass is half empty or half full depends on where you focus your attention. If your focus is on China, things are looking rosy for electric cars, with extended-range plug-in hybrid sales surging more than 83 percent in 2024 to 1.2 million units. Most of those vehicles are SUVs purchased by Chinese customers in rural areas where access to chargers is limited. They are more like fully electric cars, with battery packs that average 39 kWh, an electric-only range of 170 kilometers (106 miles), and more than 70% of total kilometers driven in electric mode.

EV Charging Getting More Expensive

One portion of the 2025 EV Report deals with charging, which Bloomberg says is getting more expensive. The typical EV driver charges at home most of the time. The cost of electricity varies considerably depending on location and pricing tariffs that may include time-of-use provisions, but in general charging at home is 25 to 60 percent cheaper than the cost of gasoline.

However, the cost of charging at public fast chargers in the US and Europe has risen sharply since 2022 and is now equal to the cost of gasoline, and may even be more expensive in some situations. Removing the savings from the cost/benefit equation may discourage some from driving an EV, especially since the purchase cost of an EV still tends to be higher that the cost of a conventional car in those places. It is easy to justify that higher cost if there are savings to be realized over time, but if those savings are no longer likely, that puts a damper on the enthusiasm for driving electric.

The only place where electric cars are cheaper than conventional cars at the moment is China, where BYD recently sparked a major price war by slashing the price of many of its cars, at least through the end of this month. Bloomberg says it expects more new energy vehicles — PHEVs, EREVs, and BEVs — will be sold in China in 2026 than all the cars of all types sold in the US.

Battery Factory Overcapacity Is Affecting Prices

China is still the leading battery manufacturer and is expected to continue its dominance this year and next. But some factories are operating at less than 50 percent capacity, which is driving down prices in China to below $100 per kWh. Still, many battery companies are continuing to make ambitious plans to build new factories or expand existing ones. However, battery prices remain above that level in Europe and the US. Bloomberg says it is expecting moderate price declines in battery prices over the next few years instead of the 20 percent drop that occurred in 2024.

Storm Clouds Ahead In US

Bloomberg continues to predict growth in EV sales in the US. In a prior report, it said it expected EV sales in America to hit almost 50 percent by 2030, but now that prediction has been cut nearly in half to about 27 percent of sales by the end of this decade. That represents a reduction of about 14 million vehicles. But there is a big red flag waiving. If California is prevented from pursuing its EV polices, BNEF’s projected EV share in the US would be pared back even further. At the moment, the ability of California to chart its own course is in peril after the US voted to revoke California’s waiver in May, a decision California is contesting in court.

“If this attempt at revoking the waiver is successful, it would have dire consequences for EV sales in California, and because of the state’s oversized influence on the EV market in the country, in whole of the US,” BNEF said recently. “Removing all of the supply-side mandates in the country, at the same time as demand incentives, would push down EV sales in the US sharply.”

The issue is not just a dark cloud of anti-EV sentiment throughout the current administration. Bizarre tariffs on aluminum and steel together with many items in the automotive supply chain are putting needless pressure on US automakers. The auto industry can’t absorb the costs of tariffs and invest in electrification and autonomy and software-defined vehicles and new factories, all while fighting off rising Chinese competitors, warned Axiosrecently.

“The math just doesn’t add up. Between the lines, if car prices go up, Americans will buy fewer of them, meaning less revenue to fund US growth. If companies hold steady on pricing, their modest profit margins will vanish, replaced by red ink — another limitation on growth. If they build a new factory in the US, they’ll have less to spend on innovations like electric vehicles and automated driving, slowing their historic transformation and falling [further] behind China.

John Bozzella, president and CEO of Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an auto industry trade group, said, “Additional tariffs will increase costs on American consumers, lower the total number of vehicles sold inside the US and reduce U.S. auto exports — all before any new manufacturing or jobs are created in this country.”

Manufacturers can try to adapt by shifting some production for other countries — particularly Mexico and Canada — to their US factories, but that is expensive and cannot happen with the flip of a switch. A new factory costs at least $1 billion today and can take three to five years to bring online. Workers in the US also earn considerably more than their counterparts in other countries, which will drive up the cost of new cars and trucks even further. It is unclear why the current administration has declared war on manufacturers, but it is clear that consumers will ultimately pay the price for these absurd tariffs.

Lenny LaRocca, who heads the research team covering the US auto industry for KPGM, told Axios that standard business practices are not enough to ensure a sustainable, profitable auto industry today. “This is a watershed moment for OEMs and suppliers to rethink their business models. The low hanging fruit has already been done.

The bottom line is that US automakers will have less money to spend on innovation and will end up ceding dominance in the automotive sector to China, just as the US is doing with clean energy technologies. It is as if the administration is setting the country up to fail. Meanwhile, the party in power is doing all it can to support these self-destructive policies. Things are going to end badly for American industry, and nothing seems to be able to keep the Dear Leader from driving the country off a cliff.