BUG: Series(strings).astype("float64[pyarrow]") raising

doc/source/whatsnew/v2.0.0.rst

@@ -830,6 +830,7 @@ Conversion
 - Bug in :meth:`Series.convert_dtypes` not converting dtype to nullable dtype when :class:`Series` contains ``NA`` and has dtype ``object`` (:issue:`48791`)
 - Bug where any :class:`ExtensionDtype` subclass with ``kind="M"`` would be interpreted as a timezone type (:issue:`34986`)
 - Bug in :class:`.arrays.ArrowExtensionArray` that would raise ``NotImplementedError`` when passed a sequence of strings or binary (:issue:`49172`)
+- Bug in :meth:`Series.astype` raising ``pyarrow.ArrowInvalid`` when converting from a non-pyarrow string dtype to a pyarrow numeric type (:issue:`50430`)
 - Bug in :func:`to_datetime` was not respecting ``exact`` argument when ``format`` was an ISO8601 format (:issue:`12649`)
 - Bug in :meth:`TimedeltaArray.astype` raising ``TypeError`` when converting to a pyarrow duration type (:issue:`49795`)
 -

pandas/core/arrays/arrow/array.py

@@ -206,17 +206,17 @@ def _from_sequence(cls, scalars, *, dtype: Dtype | None = None, copy: bool = Fal
         Construct a new ExtensionArray from a sequence of scalars.
         """
         pa_dtype = to_pyarrow_type(dtype)
-        is_cls = isinstance(scalars, cls)
-        if is_cls or isinstance(scalars, (pa.Array, pa.ChunkedArray)):
-            if is_cls:
-                scalars = scalars._data
-            if pa_dtype:
-                scalars = scalars.cast(pa_dtype)
-            return cls(scalars)
-        else:
-            return cls(
-                pa.chunked_array(pa.array(scalars, type=pa_dtype, from_pandas=True))
-            )
+        if isinstance(scalars, cls):
+            scalars = scalars._data
+        elif not isinstance(scalars, (pa.Array, pa.ChunkedArray)):
+            try:
+                scalars = pa.array(scalars, type=pa_dtype, from_pandas=True)
+            except pa.ArrowInvalid:
+                # GH50430: let pyarrow infer type, then cast
+                scalars = pa.array(scalars, from_pandas=True)
+        if pa_dtype:
+            scalars = scalars.cast(pa_dtype)
+        return cls(scalars)
 
     @classmethod
     def _from_sequence_of_strings(

pandas/tests/extension/test_arrow.py

@@ -1471,6 +1471,14 @@ def test_astype_from_non_pyarrow(data):
     tm.assert_extension_array_equal(result, data)
 
 
+def test_astype_float_from_non_pyarrow_str():
+    # GH50430
+    ser = pd.Series(["1.0"])
+    result = ser.astype("float64[pyarrow]")
+    expected = pd.Series([1.0], dtype="float64[pyarrow]")
+    tm.assert_series_equal(result, expected)
+
+
 def test_to_numpy_with_defaults(data):
     # GH49973
     result = data.to_numpy()