Growth in electricity consumption from electric vehicle charging slowed sharply in the first half of 2026, according to new federal data.
Even so, the vehicles already on the road continue to add steadily to the nation’s power demand.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that light-duty electric vehicles in the United States consumed 8% more electricity during the first six months of 2026 than in the last half of 2025 (2H25), down from the 13, 24% growth seen in six-month periods in recent years.
The finding appeared in the agency’s Today in Energy series, which tracks trends across the power sector.
Tax credit expiration reshapes the curve
The slowdown traces back to a single policy change. EIA reported that the slowdown in EV electricity-consumption growth followed a decline in new EV sales after federal tax credits expired in September 2025.
That finding was reported in earlier agency analysis cited in coverage of this summer’s grid peaks.
In absolute terms, the vehicles already on American roads still used a substantial amount of power. US light-duty EV electricity use has more than doubled since the first half of 2023 , totaling nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours during the first half of 2026 , according to the EIA’s Monthly Energy Review, as summarized by industry analysis of the data.
That volume keeps rising even as the rate of increase cools.
Grid operators are already adjusting forecasts
The EIA’s numbers echo a shift already visible in regional grid planning. PJM is a regional transmission organization (RTO) that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, and it trimmed its near-term peak demand projections in a 20-year load forecast issued in January.
The 2026 Long-Term Load Forecast Report anticipates lower peak demand in the near-term through 2032 due to updates to the electric vehicle and economic forecasts as well as improved vetting of requested adjustments for data centers and large loads.
The updated load forecast for summer 2026 predicts a drop in peak electricity use attributed to large loads (-0.7%), economic activity (-0.5%) and EVs (-0.1%) compared to the PJM 2025 Long-Term Load Forecast Report.
Despite the near-term pullback, PJM’s long-range outlook still points toward sustained growth. Winter peak load is projected to rise at an even greater rate than summer peak, an average 4.0% per year over the next 10-year period, and 2.7% over the next 20 years.
Why the pace still matters for utilities
Even a slower growth rate leaves utilities managing a moving target. Charging patterns, not just total volume, determine how much new infrastructure a utility must build.
The same synchronized habits that once worried grid planners, cars plugging in en masse during cheap overnight rate windows, remain a live concern even as overall EV electricity use grows more slowly than expected. Utilities have flagged this dynamic in approaches like flexible interconnection programs that let chargers skip queue delays.
Cooperatives and municipal utilities have also moved to get ahead of the trend rather than wait for it to resolve on its own, including telematics-based charging programs designed to shape behavior before it strains local circuits.
The EIA’s slower 2026 figures do not change the long-term trajectory utilities are planning around. Transportation electrification remains one of the few demand categories, alongside data centers, that grid planners expect to keep growing for decades, even if this year’s pace fell well short of the double-digit jumps recorded in prior years.
