For the first time ever, EVs outnumber gas-powered cars on the world’s roads

Story: 2044 C.E. ???  |  Last updated: January 22, 2026

Note: This is an imagined future story, written as if a projected milestone has occurred. It is based on current trends and evidence, not confirmed events.

The milestone arrived quietly — no single ceremony, no official announcement — but the numbers made it undeniable: as of this year, 2044 C.E., electric vehicles officially outnumber internal combustion engine cars on the world’s roads for the first time in history. The global EV fleet has surpassed 1.1 billion, edging past a gas-powered fleet that peaked around 2038 C.E. and has been shrinking every year since. It is the end of an era that began with the Ford Model T and the beginning of something that, for most of human history, would have been impossible to imagine.

Key projections that brought us here

• Global EV fleet: From just 58 million electric cars in 2024 C.E., the fleet grew exponentially along the S-curve analysts long predicted — reaching 250 million by 2030 C.E., 525 million by 2035 C.E., and crossing the one-billion mark around 2042 C.E.
• EV sales crossover: New EV sales surpassed new internal combustion engine sales globally around 2038 C.E., at which point the total on-road gas fleet began its inevitable decline — since scrapping rates finally exceeded new registrations.
• Oil displacement: The global EV fleet now displaces an estimated 8 million barrels of oil per day — compared to just over 1 million barrels per day in 2024 C.E. — with road transport emissions now more than 60% below their 2025 C.E. peak.

What the road to 2044 actually looked like

The transition did not happen in a straight line. The 2020s were defined by extraordinary acceleration — China alone sold over 14 million electric cars in 2025 C.E., more than the entire world had sold just two years earlier. By the early 2030s, EV sales in China were approaching 80% of total vehicle sales, and the country’s manufacturing scale was driving battery prices down to levels that made EVs cheaper than gas cars in most global markets.

Europe followed a similar arc, turbocharged by regulation. The European Union’s effective ban on new internal combustion engine car sales from 2035 C.E. onward accelerated fleet turnover across the continent. North America lagged slightly, held back by political resistance in the late 2020s, but by the mid-2030s even the U.S. market had crossed the 50% EV sales threshold — driven not by mandates but by simple economics.

Norway, which had seemed like an outlier when its EV sales share crossed 95% back in 2025 C.E., turned out to be a blueprint. What Norway showed was that once EV infrastructure reached saturation and sticker prices matched gasoline vehicles, adoption didn’t slow — it surged. Country after country followed that same curve, separated by roughly six years at each stage.

The countries that moved fastest — and why

China and Norway get the most attention, but the 2044 C.E. crossover owes as much to transitions in places mainstream narratives have often overlooked.

India, which had 60 million light vehicles on its roads in 2024 C.E., leapfrogged several stages of infrastructure development. Having never fully built out the gas station networks that entrenched fossil fuels in wealthier countries, many Indian cities and rural communities adopted two- and three-wheel electric vehicles en masse first, then transitioned quickly to four-wheel EVs as prices dropped. Indigenous and rural communities across Latin America and Southeast Asia similarly benefited from distributed solar-plus-charging microgrids that didn’t require centralized infrastructure. The EV transition, in many parts of the Global South, was a leapfrog story as much as a transition story.

As renewable energy came to dominate global electricity generation, the climate math behind EVs improved dramatically. An electric car charged on a coal-heavy grid in 2020 C.E. was meaningfully cleaner than a gas car — but an EV charged on today’s grid is nearly zero-emission across its lifetime.

The infrastructure revolution that made it possible

Range anxiety, once the most-cited barrier to EV adoption, became largely a historical curiosity by the late 2030s. Public fast-charging networks expanded faster than nearly anyone predicted in the 2020s, driven by private investment once the EV fleet crossed a critical density threshold. By 2040 C.E., the ratio of public chargers to EVs in most high-adoption markets had improved dramatically from the 2025 C.E. baseline of roughly one charger per 10 EVs.

Battery technology evolved alongside infrastructure. Solid-state batteries, which were still in early commercialization in the mid-2020s, became mainstream by the mid-2030s — offering longer range, faster charging, and longer lifespans than the lithium-ion cells that powered the first wave of mass-market EVs. IEA data from 2024 C.E. had already shown the cost trajectory heading in this direction; what surprised analysts was the speed.

The IEA’s electric vehicle tracking work — which began projecting crossover scenarios as far back as the 2020s — consistently identified charging access and battery cost as the two pivotal levers. Both moved faster than even optimistic scenarios anticipated.

What this milestone doesn’t solve — and what comes next

The 2044 C.E. crossover is historic. It is also incomplete.

Heavy trucking, shipping, and aviation — which together account for a significant share of transport emissions — have electrified far more slowly than passenger cars. Electric trucks now dominate urban logistics in most wealthy markets, but long-haul freight remains a mixed picture, with hydrogen and battery-electric solutions competing without a clear winner. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that even with full passenger EV adoption, transport as a whole will still need significant decarbonization work through 2060 C.E. and beyond.

There is also the unresolved question of the gas-powered cars still on the road. More than a billion ICE vehicles remain in circulation globally as of 2044 C.E., concentrated disproportionately in lower-income countries and communities with less access to EV charging infrastructure and financing. Equity in the transition — not just speed — will define how clean the ultimate outcome really is.

The mining supply chains behind EV batteries have also prompted ongoing scrutiny. Lithium, cobalt, and nickel extraction expanded dramatically over the past two decades, bringing both economic development and serious environmental and human rights concerns to communities in Chile, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia. IEA’s critical minerals tracking shows progress on recycling and responsible sourcing — but this remains a work in progress, not a solved problem.

Progress on land rights for communities most affected by mining — as seen in Indigenous land rights agreements covering 160 million hectares reached at COP30 — has been an important, if partial, counterweight to extraction pressures.

Still, what is true in 2044 C.E. is something that seemed almost impossible when EVs were 4% of the global fleet just two decades ago. The crossover happened. The arc bent. And the road ahead — however imperfect — runs on electricity.

Read more

For more on this story, see: IEA Global EV Outlook 2024

For more from Good News for Humankind, see:

• Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
• Indigenous land rights: COP30 agreement covering 160 million hectares
• The Good News for Humankind archive on environment

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