In recent months, electric vehicles have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In December, reports surfaced that Ford Motor Co. planned to slash production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck in 2024. And during a brutal cold snap in January, news reports highlighted the long lines at charging stations in Chicago and other northern cities, as EV owners griped about reduced battery life and increased charging times – all common occurrences for battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) in cold weather.

In the most recent Schwartz Advisors Report, Managing Partner Derek Kaufman emphasizes that Schwartz Advisors tries to filter out both the hype and hysteria in its forecasts.

 “If you’re running a forecast, you need to avoid the noise of the moment,” Kaufman says. “You can’t let that affect that forecast model. That said, we see the forecast as an evergreen prediction, so we’re constantly updating it as we learn about new battery technology or we see last year’s numbers on BEV cars, that type of thing. So from the start, we’ve been much more conservative, I think, in our prediction of the BEV take rates, because I think we know about the difficulties that they face – in range and charger availability and other challenges – just like we saw in the last few weeks in Chicago. So we are more conservative going forward.”

BEV forecasts and targets run the gamut from conservative to aggressive to fanciful. In April 2023, the EPA said that electric vehicles could account for 67% of new light-duty vehicle sales and 46% of new medium-duty vehicle sales in model-year 2032. Meanwhile, an executive order in California requires that all new cars and passenger trucks sold in the state by 2035 must be zero-emission vehicles.  

“In our forecast, we’re below those numbers,” Kaufman explains. He notes that Schwartz Advisors forecasts that 25.8% of new-vehicle sales will be electric in 2030, rising to 40% in 2035. “We think it’s a better representation of technological reality.”