OPEC said EVs would stay niche. Last year, 1 in 4 new cars was electric

What the skeptics said at the time

The dismissals came from serious people with real data. OPEC's World Oil Outlook, as reported by Green Car Reports in December 2015, said electric cars would stay marginal "for decades" and that fossil fuel vehicles would still be 94% of cars on the road in 2040. A year later, ExxonMobil (XOM) was saying much the same thing: its outlook put EVs at less than 10% of global new car sales in 2040.

Marchionne's $14,000 complaint was the carmaker's version of the same bet. Electric cars were a compliance chore, not a business.

Optimists stumbled too. President Barack Obama wanted 1 million electric vehicles on US roads by 2015, and in January 2015 Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz admitted the country would miss it. About 280,000 had been sold since late 2010, a little over a quarter of the goal.

The measured outcome, ten years on

Here's where things stood when those forecasts were written. The International Energy Agency counted about 550,000 electric cars sold worldwide in 2015, under 1% of new car sales, and reckoned the whole global fleet cut oil use by a "mere 0.01%".

Then the curve bent. The IEA's Global EV Outlook 2026, published May 20, says one in four new cars sold worldwide last year was electric, more than 20 million in all. Those cars now displace about 1.2 million barrels of oil a day, roughly 120 times what the 2015 fleet managed.

The growth has been steadier than the headlines suggest. Since 2021, sales have climbed by about 3.5 million cars a year, every year. That's also why the percentage growth keeps shrinking: the same yearly gain lands on a much bigger base.

Set that against the forecasts. Exxon expected EVs to stay under 10% of new car sales by 2040, and the world hit 25% in 2025. OPEC's million battery EVs a year for 2040 was passed many times over.

The engine was cost. BloombergNEF's annual survey found lithium ion battery packs averaged $108 per kilowatt hour in 2025, 93% cheaper than in 2010. "Cut-throat competition is making batteries cheaper every year," said Evelina Stoikou, who leads BNEF's battery technology team.

Most of the shift happened in one country. More than 13 million electric cars were sold in China in 2025, over half of all new cars there, and China built about three of every four electric cars sold worldwide. Europe came a distant second, at about 4.2 million.

The real surprise is in places almost nobody was watching. In Vietnam, nearly 40% of new cars sold in 2025 were electric, and Southeast Asian sales more than doubled to over half a million.

None of the 2015 to 2016 outlooks we reviewed saw anything like a Vietnamese EV boom coming. Cheap Chinese imports made it possible: they went from under 5% of electric car sales outside Europe and the US five years earlier to 55% in 2025, the IEA says.

Where the doubters had a point

To be fair to the skeptics, here's what they got right.

Start with America, which really did lag. Obama's target was missed by a wide margin, and a decade later electric cars were still just under 10% of US sales in 2025. When federal tax credits ended that September, fourth quarter sales fell 45%.

The slump carried into 2026. Cox Automotive estimates EVs were about 5.8% of US new vehicle sales in the second quarter, roughly half the record share set in the third quarter of 2025, when buyers rushed to beat the credit deadline. Hybrids, meanwhile, are growing.

Then there's money, where Marchionne's complaint still rings true for many legacy carmakers. Ford (F) said its Model e electric unit lost $4.8 billion before interest and taxes in 2025, and it expects to lose another $4.0 billion to $4.5 billion this year. Selling EVs at volume is one achievement. Making money on them is another, and Ford hasn't managed the second yet.

Subsidies also mattered more than fans liked to admit. When China started charging electric car buyers half the standard purchase tax at the start of 2026, the CPCA industry group reported buyers holding off. The IEA estimates global electric car sales fell 8% in the first quarter, mainly because of lower sales in China and the US after policy changes.

Still, so far this looks like a dip rather than a reversal. In China, retail sales of new energy vehicles (battery cars and plug-in hybrids) were down through late July, but gasoline car sales fell even faster, so electrified cars took about two thirds of retail sales in July's first 26 days, according to CnEVPost's tally of CPCA data. China's car market is shrinking, and EVs are taking a bigger slice of a smaller pie. Elsewhere, first quarter sales jumped, up close to 30% in Europe and 80% in the rest of Asia Pacific.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said record sales in close to 100 countries were "providing relief amid the largest oil supply shock in history," a reference to the Middle East conflict that has pushed oil prices up this year. The agency still expects 23 million electric car sales in 2026, about 28% of the global market. Treat that as a forecast, not a result, especially after a first quarter that went backward.

What to watch next

The next checkpoint is Cox Automotive's third quarter US figures, which will show whether American sales have stopped falling or are still sliding from last year's peak. After that comes Ford's full year report early next year, the test of whether Model e lands inside its forecast loss. And the IEA's 23 million forecast will be judged against a year that started 8% down.

Twelve years after Marchionne begged people not to buy his electric car, the world ignored him on volume, buying more than 13 million in China alone last year. But Ford's losses and the post credit US slump suggest he wasn't wrong about the money, or about American buyers.

So here's our question for you: with the US share near 6% this spring while the global average hit 25% last year, is that a temporary policy hangover, or did the American skeptics turn out to be right about American buyers?