Buyers around the world are lining up to purchase electric vehicles (EV) this year even with sticker prices surging, flipping the script on a decade and a half of conventional auto industry wisdom that EV sales would break out only after battery costs dropped below a threshold that was always just over the horizon.

This year, EV demand has stayed strong even as the average cost of lithium-ion battery cells soared to an estimated US$160 per kilowatt-hour in the first quarter...