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2022 may not quite be the year of the electric vehicle. But the road leading to a market dominated by clean-running EVs is looking more and more like it could become a superhighway. 

New sales figures showed that last year Toyota ended the 90-year run of General Motors as the top-selling vehicle maker in the United States. Yet the Japanese automaker has been among the least enthusiastic companies about converting to EVs. 

Toyota has led the way in producing more-efficient gasoline-powered vehicles such as the Prius hybrid, the popular gas-powered compact with an electric motor assist. But it’s been less committed than its competitors to purely EV models.

Now Toyota has announced it will spend some $35 billion to develop and produce EVs. Volkswagen, for comparison, has already pledged $58.5 billion toward EVs. And even Toyota’s smaller Japanese rival Nissan will spend $17.7 billion.

Tesla, of course, remains far and away the leader in EV production. It built and delivered nearly a million EVs in 2021, up a “jaw-dropping” 87% from 2020, as one Wall Street analyst put it. 

And that was without the $7,500-per-vehicle subsidy offered to EV buyers by the federal government. Both Tesla and GM have used up their allotted subsidies under the program.

In fact, perhaps the most encouraging news on EV sales in the U.S. is that they’re being driven largely by customer demand, not by government incentives. Unlike today’s tiny gas-sipping sedans, coming EVs run the gamut from pickup trucks to SUVs and sports cars. Fun and utility come first.

Ford’s hottest new vehicle is the F-150 Lightning, an all-electric version of its popular pickup truck. More than 160,000 are on preorder with deliveries beginning this year. 

“The F-150 is the most important franchise in our company,” Ford executive Kumar Galhotra told The New York Times. The truck can  serve as a backup generator to power a house when its electricity is knocked out in a storm or to recharge other EVs.

Rival GM introduces its all-electric pickup, the Chevy Silverado, this week.

Ford’s sporty Mustang Mach-E crossover EV has been a lively seller, too. It’s even on order as a cruiser by the New York Police Department. 

Globally, sales of EVs rose 168% in the first half of 2021, while general vehicle sales worldwide fell 16%, compared with the previous year. Much of that decline is attributed to a shortage of computer chips for the vehicles, not cautious buyers.

The big picture: The number of all EVs – cars, trucks, vans, and buses – on the road will increase from 10 million today to some 145 million by 2030, forecasts the International Energy Agency. If governments employ incentive programs, that could be much higher, the agency says.

Like many innovations, EVs will enter the market at the top, luxury and specialty vehicles, and work their way toward a mass customer base as costs drop. All the oft-repeated drawbacks – limited driving range, slow recharging, lack of public charging stations – look surmountable in coming years. 

As EVs become more desired and trendy, even their resale value may turn into a selling point later this decade, in comparison to what might then be seen as old-fashioned fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

In the U.S., new government subsidies to buyers of EVs could still happen if some form of the Build Back Better bill passes. That would speed EV adoption. But the market is already signaling that EVs look more and more like vehicles of the future.