If you do a decent amount of driving you've seen at least a handful of electric vehicles in your area cars like those from Tesla are probably the most noticeable with their sleek
srcand modern design but there are plenty of other EVs that quietly fly under the radar like the Chevy Volt Nissan Leaf or the Toyota Prius Prime electric vehicles are experiencing a huge surge in popularity with sales in 2021
up 81 percent from the previous year but they still haven't put much of a dent in the total number of car sales at least in the u.s. why is that there are a couple of reasons let's start by looking at US car sales as
of 2018 the entire industry sold a whopping 17 point 2 million vehicles in the US and 2020 of those 17 million cars only 360 one thousand three hundred and seven of them were electric that's about two percent of total sales
and remember that's up 81 percent over 2019 with all the hype electric car companies have been getting over the past few years you'd think people would be adopting the technology at a higher rate but that doesn't seem
to be the case why it mostly comes down to initial cost the average price for a new car in 2020 was right around $35,000 that gets you a good reliable and fairly comfortable or speedy car with financing options $35,000 is still a
lot of money but a lot of average Americans are willing and able to pay it electric cars are at a slight disadvantage here if you take the top 10 best-selling EVs on the market as of 2020 their average price comes
out to forty five thousand six hundred sixty five dollars over ten thousand dollars more for a comparable vehicle with greater perceived limitations if you take the same average with the best-selling gasoline-powered cars
you come up with just twenty seven thousand dollars almost ten thousand dollars below the average price for a new car it's pretty straightforward most people would rather pay less money for a new car regardless of how
cool the newer technology is but upfront cost is only one part of the problem for would-be evie owners the other big hurdle often overblown depending on the location is availability of charging stations with gasoline-powered
cars you never really have to worry about where you'll find your next guy station unless you're driving through the middle of nowhere odds are you'll see a gas station within a couple miles evie charging stations are
much less abundant there are only about 20,000 of them across the US compared to somewhere in the ballpark of a hundred 68,000 gas stations evie charging stations are popping up all over the place but the concern is valid
for a lot of people if you live in rural Texas you probably won't see a charging station within a couple hours of your home of course if you live in the DFW Metroplex you won't have any trouble charging up the number
of charging stations across the u.s. is expected to double in the next year or so making switching to electric vehicles much easier okay say we get to the point where charging stations are nearly as prevalent as gas stations what
it take for electric vehicles to catch up with and eventually overtake gasoline-powered car sales first there would need to be a larger selection of affordable EVs.