"Major threshold passed": Elon Musk makes big future claim as gasoline-only cars fall below 50% in global new sales for the first time ever

Elon Musk, the fifty-five-year-old billionaire and Tesla chief, made headlines recently after sharing his take on the electric vehicle revolution. Responding to a post by Polymarket on X, the world’s richest man reacted to news that gas-powered vehicles had slipped below half of all new global car sales for the first time. “

Major threshold passed,” shared Musk.

“Almost all cars will be electric in the future,” he added.

As per a report shared by Nikkei, data from Mobility Global found that pure gasoline vehicles fell to 49% of the market between January and June, a decline of three percentage points. EVs made up 17% of all new vehicle sales in that same window. Pure gasoline vehicles went from holding 73% of the global market in 2021 to just 49% in the opening half of 2026, a drop that likely makes them a minority for the first time since car ownership became widespread in the 1920s.

Mobility Global’s projections put EVs at more than 30% of total vehicle production by 2030, at which point they would overtake hybrids and conventional vehicles to claim the top powertrain position. As per the data, BYD overtook Tesla to become the world’s top EV producer for the full year in 2025, though both companies have continued swapping the quarterly lead.

Social media users are divided over Elon Musk’s prediction:

Elon Musk's post didn’t land the same way for everyone. One user backed him up entirely, arguing the shift away from gas had never really been a question. The way they saw it, every industry that once ran on chemical or mechanical systems had already gone through the exact same change.

“It always was inevitable. Progress tends toward increasing efficiency and dematerialization of parts. Gasoline cars are 30 percent efficient with 200 moving parts. EVs are 90 percent efficient with 20. Same happened with cameras, computers, and just about everything else that used to be chemical/mechanical,” the user explained.

That being said, not everyone on X was ready to agree. Two separate users pushed back with practical concerns, and both were specific. One had no interest in giving up his gas car, as repairability and long-distance driving were the issues he kept coming back to.

“I like your innovation but I want my gas cars. I can’t fix a 20 year old electric car, plus driving across the country on electric? Ain’t nobody got that time,” the user shared.

Charging speed was the dealbreaker for another commenter, as battery technology was, in their view, nowhere close to ready. Size and weight were concerns too, and they had one condition attached to any future switch.

“I’ll get an electric car when it takes less than 5 minutes to charge. Battery technology is not there yet. Too big and heavy, especially for a car,” they added.

The opinions expressed above belong solely to the individual users who posted them on X and do not reflect the editorial position of the publication.

How price cuts helped Tesla win back European buyers who had turned away over Elon Musk's politics:

Tesla’s fortunes in Europe looked very different by mid-2026 compared to the year before. As per a report shared by The New York Times in June, the automaker’s sales across the continent had rebounded sharply. A broader rise in electric vehicle purchases had contributed to that shift, with EVs accounting for more than a fifth of all new car purchases in Europe by that point. In 2025, though, Tesla had been in trouble.

The company’s European sales had dropped significantly that previous year, a situation which many tied to Elon Musk's vocal support for right-wing politicians in Britain and continental Europe, as well as his role as President Trump’s cost-cutting czar. Buyers had turned away from the brand. Tesla’s vehicle sales then climbed seventy-seven percent from January through May 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, with the company selling twenty-two thousand cars in Europe in May alone. That number cleared Ford, Nissan and Honda even when including their fossil-fuel models.

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Many buyers appeared to have set aside their personal feelings about Elon Musk after Tesla cut prices on its entry-level models, bringing them in line with comparable gasoline and diesel vehicles. In some countries, a Model Y could be leased for under three hundred euros a month. Matthias Schmidt, an independent Berlin-based analyst who tracks electric vehicle sales, shared his read on why buyers had come back.

“Once you go down the pricing scale, people pay less attention to ethics or morality. Tesla’s product has become so appealing from a price perspective, it’s almost too good to refuse,” Schmidt shared.

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