Americans want electric cars – they just can’t find them

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EV sales may be slowing in the US, but that doesn't necessarily mean Americans are losing interest. Limited supply, high prices and government policy are making it harder for buyers to make the switch.

Within three months of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, the average price of gasoline for American drivers climbed from US$2.94 to $4.35 a gallon. If there was ever a moment for Americans to switch to electric vehicles, this was it.

From March to May 2026, in fact, sales of hybrid electric vehicles were 18% higher than over the same months in 2025.

But sales of fully electric vehicles were 16% lower from March to May 2026 compared with the same months in 2025. Some observers took that as evidence that high gas prices alone wouldn’t push Americans toward fully electric cars, but that conclusion misses half the story.

I study car buyers and their preferences, and there is an important distinction between what consumers want and what they can actually buy. Sales reveal what cars people actually bought, but not necessarily what they actually wanted.

When the supply of some kinds of cars can’t keep up with demand, prices rise, and that’s exactly what happened for electric vehicles in 2026.

In 2026, hybrids and all-electric vehicles faced the same jump in demand from the oil crisis. While there were plenty of hybrids available to meet that demand, the same was not true for EVs.

Hybrid production had been growing for years, led by Toyota, which sells about half of the hybrids bought in the United States. As a result, even as sales surged, hybrid inventories on dealer lots were 19% higher in March 2026 than they had been a year earlier.

However, EV production had been in retreat since the tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed in July 2025 ended federal tax credits for EVs. Buyers had been able to get up to $7,500 for new EVs and $4,000 for used ones, but that ended after Sept. 30, 2025.

Automakers responded by cutting back their EV production. General Motors laid off more than 3,400 workers at its EV and battery plants and shifted its Tennessee plant to make batteries for energy storage, not cars.

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