Electric vehicle adoption appears to have turned a corner in the U.S. as EVs made up a record high of 8.5% of February’s new-vehicle purchase and lease market, J.D. Power reports.

The February EV share of the automotive market was almost double the level a year earlier, the new J.D. Power EV Index found.

Downward pressure on EV prices compared to gas-powered models has helped fuel the surge in consumer demand. EVs haven’t yet reached price parity with ICE models, J.D. Power says, but have made significant gains.

The factors influencing price decline include state and federal tax credits for EV purchases, EV price cuts by some carmakers, including Tesla and Ford, and the emergence of lower-priced EV models than have historically been available, J.D. Power says.

For instance, after federal EV tax credit reclassifications that made the Mustang Mach-E and the Tesla Model Y eligible for the credit, consumer consideration of the models rose by 3.4 percentage points, J.D. Power says.

Along with better affordability, J.D. Power says that improved availability is also a factor in the increase in adoption. It says availability took a sharp upswing in January to 39.4 on a 100-point scale, or that about four in 10 new-vehicle shoppers had a viable option to internal-combustion-engine models.

J.D. Power expects that half of U.S. vehicle consumers will have a viable EV option by the end of the year and 75% will by the close of 2026.

One current example is the Chevrolet Bolt, which at a price of less than $30,000, down nearly $7,000 from December, is far less expensive than many EV models on the market.

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