As an American, I'm going to be really sad when we miss this transition. Maybe there's still time?

As a European, US will probably overtake Europe on EVs soon and fast. You have two unique differences to many other countries - a lot of population lives in private houses or condos, where they can just plug in EV in a regular socket without much changes. And US has a sprawling net of private solar installations which will stimulate EVs even more as soon as people will wake up to bills they incur. And lastly US has a proper non-broken and user friendly net of charging stations, courtesy of one rocketman.

Europe on the other hand had a big headstart and squandered it (and no, Norway doesn't count, Norway's experience can't and won't be transferred to other countries). I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. Almost no charging spots in any of them, or maybe 1-2 spots per 200 apartment building AND they are priced even higher than high cost basic concrete parking place. Public charging stations are very limited in numbers, often closed or out of service. Interop is crap, I've used a corporate EV Astra while on a business trip and the card didn't work anywhere outside of the office parking lot, which by the way is a parking for a 5 storied business center occupied by IT companies and it has exactly 1 (one) moderately crappy charging pole with 1 (one) port. I had to drive to a Ford dealership in my Opel EV and a very pleasant gentleman had to swipe his card to start charging. Oh, and no charging poles had any display or app options, it literally had red, yellow or green led light and that's all we got. And it took me 1.5 hours to top up barely 100 km of range. Now that is an expensive 45k euro EV made no earlier than 2023 with minimal wear and mileage.

In short - Europe "rode" on a wave of rich individuals buying their fun cars and able to afford all externalities for them. This population is running out or leveling. And Europe (both collectively and per-country basis) did barely anything to prepare other people, without fun car money or private houses for EV transition. For example, in my freshly constructed building there are 180 apartments and zero EV chargers. Would any of us buy EV any time soon? Especially since just the car itself usually cost more than similar ICE and there are no subsidies? Doubt it. And it is starting to show, when wildly optimistic EV transition targets are starting being pushed in the future.

Fellow American here, I hope we do. Not because electric cars are any worse than combustion cars - they are better. But they're still cars. Electrifying them is a bandaid on the gaping wound that is our transportation infrastructure. Ideally missing out on the electrification of cars dethrones the car as the only way most people get around.

> Maybe there's still time?

I don't know that there is. It takes ages to develop an EV-focused platform, and the lines to manufacture it. Tesla is the only American manufacturer that has already done that work, and they're circling the drain. Aside from them, there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt. All of the top-of-the-line EVs are Korean or Chinese, and the 2nd tiers are all European. America's EVs aren't even on the horizon, they'll be playing catchup for decades.

It’ll happen eventually, it’s an economic certainty. And when it finally does it probably won’t be that bad for the American consumer buying a car.

The real loss is the international trade and the effect that’ll have on the overall economy. Mexico and Canada will already be dominated by Chinese cars and it’ll be too late to compete.

It will absolutely happen. BYD is already in Mexico and the door has been opened in Canada.

While America is slow, the transition is happening. There are a fair number of electric cars on the road. Some like the cybertruck are obvious, but there are a lot of cars that come in ICE or EV variants that you can't tell and people are talking. Don't lose hope.

I see parallels with the failed metric system transition: a voluntary shift with inconsistent policy, the impression that it's all just an elitist/foreign conspiracy, cultural/political resistance, and so on. Of the major developed economies, only Japan is lower on BEV market share. Realistically the transition will probably happen in pockets, for instance California has similar EV sales share as Germany right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

It will happen. My guess is that Canada is BYD’s pilot into the US. They have very similar buyer characteristics and the Canadian tariff deal allows them to enter the market without taking the risks of local factories.

It won’t take much to get BYD access to the US. It’s a two-step process:

- Toss a million bucks at Trump or wait for a Democratic administration

- Build a plant in Alabama/Tennessee/South Carolina/Georgia

That’s literally all it takes.