(TNND) — A new Brookings report looks at how states vary in their electric vehicle policies in the aftermath of the pullback of federal incentives.

Researchers put together a “scorecard” on how states are using policies and their own incentives to spur EV adoption.

Brookings Metro senior fellow Mark Muro, who coauthored the report with senior research assistant Shriya Methkupally, said the withdrawal of federal initiatives makes identifying the “leaders” and “laggards” at the state level all the more important.

“As you know, we at Brookings Metro are deeply involved and interested in the geography of the economy,” he said. “So, this is a quite striking example of different terrain in the country.”

Scores could range from 0 to 13, but no state scored above 11.

California and Massachusetts both scored 11, followed by Colorado, Oregon, Maryland, New York, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine, all of which scored 10s.

On the other end of the spectrum, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, Montana, Louisiana, and South Dakota all scored zeros.

Muro and Methkupally scored states across a range of policy efforts, including consumer incentives, environmental standards and charging infrastructure.

“There really aren’t silver bullets here,” Muro said.

No single policy matters to supporting EV adoption more than getting the right mix of policies working together, he said.

“A decent tax treatment can be undermined by a lack of charging infrastructure,” Muro said as an example.

The federal government pushed for wider use of EVs under former President Joe Biden, but President Donald Trump has scrapped many of those policies.

Trump said he would “rescue the U.S. auto industry from destruction” last year as he went after California’s EV mandate.

And Republicans used Trump’s massive “One Big Beautiful Bill” last year to roll back green energy subsidies, including the $7,500 EV tax credit consumers used to lower the cost of buying a qualifying new EV.

The Trump administration also revoked the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a policy underpinning a lot of the EPA’s work to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

The Brookings report found that the highest-scoring states had more than four times the average EV adoption rate as the lowest-scoring states. Muro, however, said their scorecard measured EV readiness, not what has caused EV sales to be higher some places over others.

Cox Automotive, which includes brands like Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader, reported this week that EV sales in May were down nearly 22% on a year-over-year basis.

EVs accounted for 5.7% of total new-vehicle sales in May.

Meanwhile, used EV sales continue to expand, up nearly 25% from May 2025.

Sean Tucker, of KBB, said EV sales spiked to about 10.5% of all cars ahead of the federal $7,500 EV tax credit going away last fall. EV sales then crashed to under 6% of all cars sold in the fourth quarter.

“So, it’s still kind of finding its level,” Tucker said. “And it’s been around the 6% mark through most of 2026. But 2026 hasn’t been perfectly normal either, because we’ve seen gas between $4 and $6 depending on the state.”

Tucker said the higher gas prices have fueled search traffic for EVs on the KBB website but haven’t driven sales higher yet. And higher gas prices might not, if the public sees them as a temporary disruption.

Still, Tucker said they’re seeing a spike in hybrid sales.

And he still sees a future where most new cars sold in America are electric. That time might just take longer to reach without the tailwind of federal incentives, he said.

The International Energy Agency recently reported that a quarter of all new cars sold worldwide were electric last year. And the IEA said EVs might hit 30% of all cars sold worldwide this year.

The automotive industry moves very slowly, Tucker said. It typically takes about five to seven years for a car to go from a sketch to the sales floor, so automakers must weigh more than just the current administration’s policies.

“If you’re an automaker, and you’re trying to compete on a global level, you have to compete in a market where 25% of car sales outside the U.S. are electric, and about 6% inside, and you want to be competitive in both markets,” Tucker said. “That’s really hard to do.”