Gas Cars Will Start to Disappear Sooner Than You Think

Written by

Scott Case

Co-Founder & CEO

June 4, 2025

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Gas cars are disappearing, and this data shows it's happening before most people realize.

There’ll be fewer gas-powered cars on the road in California next year than this year. And every year after that. In Colorado and Washington State, that tipping point occurs in 2026.

It turns out that when a state approaches 30% new EV sales, that’s the tipping point for the number of gas cars on the road falling.

It’s a little counterintuitive that it’s not 50% when that happens -- almost like one of those tricky logic problems on the SATs, and the catch is that a certain percentage of all cars on the road exit operation each year. This can be due to accidents or being aged out of the purchase pool.

Here’s how the math works:

As a nation, we have 285M cars on the road in operation today. Each year, there are 15-16M new cars sold in the US, while 12M exit the road permanently. Since the vast majority (>99%) of the cars permanently exiting operation are gas-powered, we actually only have to get to 4M new EV sales per year nationally before the number of gas cars begins its inexorable decline. That's because 16M - 12M cars = 4M. Once EVs surpass that number, there will be fewer gas cars added to the roads than there are leaving.

Nationwide, that’ll happen as early as 2029, despite new EV sales only being 30% in that year.

But on a state by state basis, “peak gas car” happens much earlier.

The implications to this hidden trend are wild. Revenue from gasoline sales and oil changes will begin to decline in several states in the next year or two.

For gas car drivers and owners, this shift means the infrastructure around their vehicles will start changing dramatically. Gas stations will become less profitable and may begin closing, especially in states that hit peak gas car earliest. Already, California has more EV charging stations than gas stations, signaling what's ahead. Maintenance networks for gas cars may shrink as demand falls, potentially making repairs more expensive and harder to find. Used gas car values could also decline faster than expected as buyers increasingly prefer EVs, while the resale market shifts toward electric vehicles. Gas car owners may find themselves driving an increasingly obsolete technology sooner than they anticipated.

Recurrent Auto is an organization that promotes the transition to electric transportation. Its major investors include AAA Washington, CarMax, and Goodyear Ventures, all of which share Recurrent’s vision of making electric vehicle ownership more transparent and accessible. On its website, it says, “That independence matters. It means Recurrent can serve drivers and the industry with data-backed insights without bias or hidden agendas.”