Plug-In Electric Vehicles in Strong Demand, but Growth of Adoption Has Collapsed
Highland Park – While plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) are still in strong demand, adoption growth has completely collapsed for light-duty electric vehicles (LDV). While a variety of new electric vehicles continue to enter the market, giving customers many choices, the 2024 outcome signifies a significant inflection point in PEV adoption in NJ.
In parallel with this collapse in growth, there were unforced policy errors that likely added fuel to this fire. Introducing a punitive registration fee, re-introducing sales tax for electric vehicles, and reducing the Charge Up NJ state rebates by half (from $4,000 to $2,000) worked to cancel each other out, effectively resulting in increased costs for electric vehicles at precisely the time the growth needed to accelerate to meet our clean energy goals.
The Details:
a) The total number of PEVs on the roads in New Jersey at the end of 2024 was 218,631, including 212,662 LDVs and 5,969 medium-heavy duty vehicles (MHDV). For comparison, at the end of 2023, there were 151,817 LDVs and 2,326 MHDVs on NJ roads.
Source: ChargEVC-NJ
b) In the light-duty segment, 2024 saw a net year-over-year (Y/Y) growth in the LDV-PEV population of 60,845 vehicles (and it is important to note that “net population growth” is not the same as sales). That means the overall LDV-PEV population increased by 40.1% Y/Y. While still strong, that is a significant decline compared with 2023, when the net population growth was 66.3%.
c) It is more telling to look deeply at how the net change in 2024 compared with 2023 for the LDV sector. There was a net increase of 60,845 LDV-PEVs in 2024, compared with 60,524 LDV-PEVs in 2023 – an increase of one-half of one percent. This is a massive collapse compared with the same metric for 2023 of 66.3%. While it is true that multiple market factors impact this outcome, it is also true that New Jersey made policy decisions that likely exacerbated this outcome.
d) We need to see a net increase of over 117,000 vehicles in 2025 to hit the state’s statutory 330,000 LDV target. This is extremely unlikely, given that the population only increased by ~60,000 vehicles last year, and the Y/Y growth is now nearly zero. Given additional economic headwinds we are likely to see in 2025, including the possible loss of federal incentives, a persistent shortfall in public charging build-out, and the continuation of high prices, we now think it likely Y/Y growth in NJ will be negative in2025.
e) There has been a notable shift in the balance between battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) in the LDV segment. The share of PHEVs has been declining for some time but started to gain in popularity over the last two years. That now appears to be stabilizing, with the PHEV share at the end of 2024 roughly the same as at the end of 2023. This is what that trend looks like over time.
Source: ChargEVC-NJ
f) The MHDV segment, in the early stages of market development, saw encouraging growth. MHDVs grew in 2025 by 3,643 vehicles – a significant increase over the growth in 2023 of 2,114 vehicles. However, almost all of that growth was in the medium-duty segment, not buses or other heavy-duty vehicles. Most of this increase is primarily due to the growth of Rivian and Tesla pick-ups and Ford transit vans. The activity was very soft in other key segments: the number of electric school buses increased minimally, from 25 at the end of 2023 to 33 at the end of last year; the number of other (non-school) buses increased modestly from 61 to 75; and the non-bus heavy-duty vehicles grew from 123 at the end of 2023 to 157 at the end of last year.
“This is disappointing and not entirely surprising,” says Pam Frank, CEO of ChargEVC. She continues, “We are working hard to reverse these policy missteps.”
Increasing adoption also requires exposing people to electric vehicles and educating the public regarding their benefits. To that end, ChargEVC is hosting its first-ever Mobility Event at American Dream on May 17-18. This will allow the public to experience the vehicles, with ride-and-drive opportunities, and showcase exciting new models at varying price points and the charging infrastructure that supports them. It will be a great opportunity in a unique venue, to educate the public and separate facts from fiction. See www.chargevcexpo.org for more information.
ChargEVC Expo & Conference
Media Contact:
Kassandra Damblu
expo@chargevc.org