The electric vehicle transition might not be moving ahead with the same gusto it showed in the early 2020s, but it's still happening. According to Deloitte's 2026 Global Automotive Consumer Study, 7 percent of US car buyers want an electric vehicle for their next car. While that might sound rather meager, it's a 40 percent increase from 2025's survey, which found just 5 percent of car buyers wanted an EV.
Plain old internal combustion remains Americans' first choice, with 61 percent telling the survey that's how their next ride will be powered. Twenty-one percent want a hybrid, up from 20 percent last year. Just 5 percent indicated a desire for a plug-in hybrid (down from 6 percent last year), with the remaining confused souls either unsure of what to buy next (4 percent) or some other option, presumably hydrogen (1 percent).
A graph showing preference for engine type in car buyers' next vehicle.
Credit:
Deloitte
The high demand for internal combustion engines makes the US an outlier among large car-buying markets. Fewer than half of German car buyers want another gas-powered vehicle, and that number falls to just 41 percent in China, Japan, and South Korea. But those consumers aren't all fleeing internal combustion for battery EVs. Well, they mostly are in China, where EV demand is now 20 percent. But in Japan, only 5 percent of consumers want a battery EV, versus 37 percent indicating their next car would be a hybrid.
