Electric cars pass a crucial tipping point in 23 countries

Ireland joined the 5% club by the end of 2019 and today, almost one in five new car sales are of electric vehicles. 

Convincing everyone to adopt a new technology can be a slog at first. The humble microwave oven, for example, took two decades of lukewarm sales to reach just a tenth of US households. But then came the 1980s, and microwaves had spread to nearly every kitchen.

That fast part of the technology adoption curve is happening now with electric vehicles, according to a Bloomberg Green analysis of adoption rates around the world. This threshold signals the start of mass adoption when technological preferences rapidly flip. Since then, five more countries have made the leap.