U.S. Is World Leader in Recent Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Investments

(Washington, D.C. – March 8, 2024) Two new analyses by Environmental Defense Fund show strong growth in both electric vehicle (EV) sales and manufacturing investments in the U.S.

In the last three years, the U.S. has had more private investments in EV manufacturing than any other region of the world – an amount that has more than tripled since 2021, when compared to the previous five years – and domestic EV sales in 2023 outpaced almost every prediction that industry experts made prior to that year.

“Despite some recent suggestions to the contrary, actual data show the U.S. markets for electric vehicles are flourishing. Sales are better than experts had very recently expected they would be, and the U.S. is now leading the world race for new EV manufacturing investments,” said Ellen Robo, manager of transportation and clean air policy at Environmental Defense Fund.   

For the first analysis, EDF used data from Atlas Public Policy’s Global Private Investment Dashboard, which includes EV investment information going back to 2016. Our analysis found that between 2016 and 2020 more than 60% of total global EV investments were in China, and only about one-quarter of investments were in the U.S.

Since 2021 that balance has changed dramatically, with the U.S. investing $167 billion – more than any other region. China’s share of investments in that time frame dropped to less than one-quarter of global investments.

That time period – 2021 until now – also saw substantial changes to U.S. policies supporting EV manufacturing and jobs, including both production and consumer tax credits under 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.

EDF and WSP also previously released a similar analysis focused on U.S. EV manufacturing investments. That analysis included investments only with specifically announced facility locations and start dates. It showed very significant but slightly more conservative investment values than the Atlas data, which includes all investments allocated to a specific country.

See more on our fact sheet.

EDF’s second analysis found that EV sales are going further and faster than most experts thought they would as recently as 2019 to 2022.

EDF identified 13 different sources that produced EV sales forecasts for the U.S. and collected the 35 forecasts these institutions made from 2019 through 2022. Actual EV sales in 2023 outperformed all but five of them, as more than 1.4 million electric vehicles (EVs) were sold.

See more on our fact sheet.