1. Regulation by governments. A few states and countries are mandating zero emissions (ie electric) vehicles by 2035.
2. Car manufacturer strategy. Since they know they can’t sell ICE vehicles past 2035 in some jurisdictions, it’s better to make the transition to electric quicker. Audi, for example, doesn’t plan to refresh its ICE vehicles past 2023. Even if you wanted to buy a new ICE Audi in 2025, you couldn’t.
3. Prices for consumers. The increase in manufacturing volumes of batteries will make them cheaper. They’ve dropped 20% per year over the last decade thanks to increased volumes. In a few years, the sticker price on electric vehicles will become lower without any subsidies. Their total cost of ownership is already lower. This will further increase growth.
4. Charging infrastructure. Currently the second biggest stumbling block (after sticker price). It’s not economically feasible to build charging networks or infra in apartment complexes when electric vehicles are niche. But as they grow in popularity, it becomes more viable, further increasing their popularity.
So yes, normally you can’t expect growth like this to last. But it possibly will because the attractiveness of electric cars increases in proportion to their popularity.
Interesting flipside corollaries to points 3 and 4: my opinion is I expect we may see something of a "singularity" slope in the transition sooner than I think a lot of people expect as ICE supply chains (which are quite complex webs) get disrupted and gas infrastructure goes away. Disruptions to the first may cause quick spikes in ICE vehicle costs and maintenance costs from increasing prices for consumers and decreasing supply of ICE-specific auto parts. As for the second issue, gas pumps are already seen as a high maintenance cost rarely profitable loss leader for grocery stores and convenience stores. How long do you think the pumps will be serviced/maintained/made available as demand drops? I certainly expect it might snowball surprisingly quickly whether or not overall oil costs remain at historic lows.
The cake is a lie!
But soon electric infrastructure will be mainstream.
While time is counting against combustion cars.
In the UK from 2030 onwards all new cars must be hybrid or fully electric. And the sale of new hybrids is to be outlawed from 2035.
Yeah, but we knew that when we bought a 2011 Leaf. But no one was going to build the infrastructure if no one bought electric cars, so... (And, fact is, we rarely charge it away from home, so charging infrastructure has been a thing a half dozen times in ten years.)
Ten years later, we look forward to the vast improvements in EVs when we eventually replace it.