For a product to become hegemonic is very complicated. First there were airplanes in the 1960s, then computers in the 1980s and cell phones in the 2000s. All the stories tell the same thing: first a mass rejection of new and unknown products by society, and then a generalized purchase motivated by FOMO and marketing. It has been seen with the iPhone: when they came out they were strange and expensive. Ten years later, the weird thing was not having one. It’s what’s known as the 5% curve: demand is slow until that point is reached, and then it skyrockets.
Because it is important? Because the US has just passed that turning point in mobility: 5% of new cars sold are electric.
The 5% curve. New technologies (computers, televisions, mobile phones, tablets…) follow an S-shaped adoption curve. This means that sales move at a snail’s pace in the adoption phase (up to that 5%), and then very fast once things go mainstream. That is, sales tend to be slow and unpredictable, followed by a rapid acceleration in demand.
Most countries follow this pattern, basically because the obstacles have been the same: there are not enough chargers, the cars are expensive or there is a lack of knowledge. But once that first 5% is cemented, the road becomes fluid. The data shows that this curve is similar in South Korea (which reached 5% in 2021), China (in 2018), and Norway (in 2013).
Why is 5% so important?
Most successful new technologies — electricity, TVs, mobile phones, the internet, even LED lightbulbs — follow an S-shaped adoption curve.
Sales move at a crawl in the early-adopter phase, then surprisingly quickly once things go mainstream pic.twitter.com/dpAiahO2ak
—Bloomberg Green (@climate) July 12, 2022
Increasing demand. Yes, the United States is the latest country to pass that critical tipping point for electric vehicles: 5% of new car sales run on electricity alone, according to this Bloomberg report. And getting over that threshold means mass adoption. 25% of its car sales could be electric by 2025 if it meets the same fate as 18 other countries that have already achieved it.
It should be noted that in the country alone there are around 33 EVs for sale, almost three times as many options as there were a year ago. And for the next there could be dozens more. This year alone, Americans bought nearly 1.4 million EVs, according to Bloomberg estimates.
The tendency. So far, 90% of global EV sales come from the US, China and Europe. The Asian country continues to lead the sector, we have commented on it in Magnet. But this also means that the manufacturing countries of the other third of global sales have not yet surpassed that 5%. That is to say: Latin America, Africa or Southeast Asia.
Still, global EV sales have tripled in the last two years, according to the International Energy Agency. And if we speak in global terms, that threshold of 5% was exceeded during the past year. For hybrids, the 10% point will be surpassed sometime this year.
In Spain. Our pace follows the same trend. So far in 2022, 9,432 battery-equipped vehicles have been sold: 92.6% more than in 2021, according to data from Ganvam and Aedive. In Europe, the trend is similar: in May, 183,000 plug-in vehicles were registered, which is already 19% of the total. Of these, 11% are fully electric, according to a CleanTechnica report.