This year’s report provides a snapshot of the electric vehicle (EV) market at a particularly pivotal political inflection point. Produced by Atlas Public Policy in partnership with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), the report examines data from July 2024 through June 2025 for six states across the Southeast — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee — across six market indicators: manufacturing investments; anticipated jobs; EV sales; charging infrastructure deployment; utility investments; and public funding.
Read the Report View State & Regional Pages
EV Market Inflection Point
The Biden Administration’s suite of policies incentivized and accelerated the clean energy economy over the past four years, including transportation electrification, and successfully expanded the deployment of renewable energy and EV charging; increased electric car, truck, and bus adoption; and boosted supply chain manufacturing, including batteries. The policies also centered on American workers by requiring companies to manufacture and source materials domestically to access the incentives, which spurred $290 billion in investments and 354,000 anticipated jobs, 73% of which are located in rural and Republican districts.
This year, the Trump Administration has done everything in its legal power, and things beyond, to slam the brakes on clean energy and EV market momentum. Most impactful on the EV market front, the Trump Administration is abruptly sunsetting consumer and commercial tax credits at the end of September, and by doing so is removing a key incentive for companies to invest in domestic vehicle, battery, and supply chain manufacturing, at the potential peril of American workers.
The impact of this political whipsawing on electric car, truck, and bus sales is an unfolding story. For now, the Southeast EV market is demonstrating its resilience. As shown in our newest report, sales and market share, charging station deployment, and utility investments are all continuing to increase significantly year-over-year. Meanwhile, national consumer interest in EVs remains high, and one out of every four cars sold globally is now an EV, putting pressure on American automakers to deliver affordable and desirable EVs at home and abroad to remain globally competitive.
The data in SACE’s 2025 Transportation Electrification in the Southeast Report further indicates that the electric horse has left the barn. Though anti-EV politics may slow the market in the near term, the gallop achieved over the past four years is likely to propel the market forward, regardless.
Manufacturing Investments and Jobs
The massive growth in EV and battery manufacturing-related investments and jobs that have come to the Southeast has been the topline story for the past five annual Transportation Electrification in the Southeast reports. Although investments and job growth slowed this year, our region has amassed nearly $79 billion in private sector investments, which is 37% of the national total, and is anticipated to create over 75,000 jobs, representing 33% of the national total.
Thanks to the loss of consumer and manufacturing incentives, along with broader market uncertainty caused by the political flip-flop on EVs, the Southeast is already seeing planned manufacturing projects paused or canceled. This trend is further exacerbated by trade tariffs that are expected to increase costs across the automotive industry.
When planned manufacturing facilities do not open, the associated anticipated jobs are lost. The story to watch over the next year is how much the changes in federal policies and tactics erode the economic development and job growth progress our region and the entire nation have made. With massive growth expected to continue in the global EV market, automakers will source materials and manufacture somewhere, but will that somewhere be in America, benefiting American workers?
Sales and Market Share
Here, the data speaks for itself; sales rose 38% from last year, and market share–the percentage of all new car sales that were EVs–climbed to 8.3%, despite a dip for all states in Q2, except Florida, which rocketed above the national average to an all-time high of 10.3%. The number of sales generated by legacy car companies also continued to increase, including at General Motors and Ford, which have intensified their efforts to introduce affordable and desirable EVs to the market, and innovate design and manufacturing processes to compete against Chinese manufacturers’ growing global dominance.
In addition to passenger vehicles, the commercial medium and heavy-duty EV markets are also on the rise, led by the increased deployments of drayage trucks, vans, box trucks, and electric school and transit buses. Although the commercial fleet market is a few years behind the passenger vehicle market, it is expected to catch up and surpass it in the coming years, as the EV business proposition for fleet operators is strong. EVs are significantly less expensive to fuel and maintain, creating attractive long-term operational savings.
Charging Station Deployment
Efforts to install public fast chargers (known as direct current fast chargers or DCFC) along highway corridors to support interstate travel continue to progress; as do efforts to install slower Level-2 chargers where drivers park their cars for more extended periods of time, such as in downtown commercial districts, at shopping centers, hotels, state parks, and other destinations. The most impressive growth was seen with DCFC: in the past 12 months, the Southeast added over 2,600 new DCFC ports, a 41% increase year-over-year.
This growth is despite the Trump Administration freezing funding for the $5 billion National EV Infrastructure (NEVI) program, funding that had been allocated to states to build a national network of DCFC every 50 miles along America’s major highways; a move that is being challenged in the courts and expected to be resolved soon. Had those funds not been frozen, the growth in DCFC deployment, both regionally and nationwide, would have been even greater.
It is essential to note that over 80% of EV charging occurs conveniently and affordably at home, primarily at night while drivers are asleep. Hence, access to home charging, something this report does not track, is the most critical to unlocking mass market access to EV ownership. Additionally, there is a balance to strike between fast and slow charging to optimize charging assets and enhance the consumer experience. DCFC deployments are expensive, limiting the number that can be cost-effectively deployed. Hence, we must continue to prioritize ramping up lower-cost Level-2 charging, which grew 24% year-over-year in our region, especially as Level-2 chargers, along with home charging, help alleviate pressure on DCFC demand.
Utility Investments and Public Funding
Investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are central to the growth of transportation electrification. Across the Southeast, IOUs are the energy providers and manage much of the region’s electric grid. IOUs, along with the region’s electric member cooperatives, municipal utilities, and the federally managed Tennessee Valley Authority (the combined activity of which the report does not track), serve as enablers for the cost-effective and scalable deployment and operation of EV charging, which is critical to achieving consumer and commercial mass market EV adoption.
Our report shows that investment by the region’s IOUs increased 10.5% year-over-year, after a period of flat growth. Though utilities increased investments, including launching innovative programs like Duke Energy’s Charger Prep Credit, which significantly reduces the cost of charging station installations in Florida and the Carolinas, the Southeast continues to trail the national average of the amount of EV investments per utility customer. IOUs’ relatively low level of investment, coupled with a lack of sufficient strategic planning for cost-effectively meeting and managing growing EV demand to the benefit of the electricity system and ratepayers, puts our region at a disadvantage compared to other parts of the country.
Meanwhile, the public funding story remains the same. Southeast states have successfully drawn down significant federal funding to support all aspects of transportation electrification. Still, Southeast states remain resistant to appropriating their own public dollars to support the EV market, despite the massive investments EV-related manufacturers have made and the direct connection between those companies’ success and strong consumer demand for their products.
The Road Ahead
Possibly bumpy, but drivable. We can assess how rough the road ahead is or is not by watching five key data points across the Southeast over the coming year:
- EV sales and market share need to remain strong. Expect a downturn after the tax credits expire on September 30, after which it will be up to automakers to continue bringing affordable and desirable electric cars, trucks, and buses to market without the help of federal incentives.
- Consumer interest in EVs must also remain strong. For context, recent surveys show that 24% of vehicle shoppers say they are “very likely” to consider purchasing an EV, and 35% say they are “somewhat likely. Research also shows that EV shoppers are younger, less affluent, more multicultural, and more likely to consider a used EV today compared to 2021.
- Charging infrastructure deployment must continue to expand, and EV chargers must become more reliable. The good news is that both are happening, with deployment hitting a record pace nationally and charger dependability on the rise.
- There needs to be an increase in honest and inspiring information. EV stakeholders must up their game in combating the dearth of EV misinformation with stories that connect EV benefits to everyday people and communities. Meanwhile, as automakers introduce more vehicles to the market, they must pair the technology with marketing campaigns to foster consumer desire and provide dealer training to enhance the EV shopping experience.
- Watch how national EV politics affect local economies. With the vast majority of EV and battery-related manufacturing jobs at risk in Republican-led districts, will the rollback of EV incentives hurt businesses enough that job losses start to mount in the communities represented in Congress by politicians who voted to kill the incentives? And if so, will there be a political price to pay?
The year ahead will likely provide plenty of EV market intrigue. The SACE and Atlas Public Policy teams will check back in at the end of 2025 to measure how the political and economic forces at play are impacting the Southeast’s EV momentum.
