- U.S. EV market share may be flat vs. 2024, however market enlargement means 3% EV gross sales development
- EV gross sales gained 58% trying previous direct gross sales from Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, others
- California EV gross sales have been near flat for 2024, however non-Tesla EV gross sales gained 21%
- Coverage wildcards embody EV tax credit score, tariffs, emissions coverage, and charging infrastructure
Are U.S. EV gross sales nonetheless on the way in which up?
The reply is sure, however there’s a fancy set of things at play, together with the continued decline of Tesla gross sales, an increase in recognition of mainstream EV fashions, and all that’s probably set to occur below a Trump administration.
On the floor, it’s going to appear like the EV market is simply treading water. The analysts on the market analysis agency J.D. Energy final week revised their EV retail market share forecast to be flat this 12 months, with EVs at 9.1% of the U.S. retail market.
Behind that, J.D. Energy cited a confluence of current headwinds together with vehicle-related tariffs, emissions coverage softening, the potential removing of the EV tax credit score, and the potential removing of federal charging-infrastructure funding (already within the obstructionism stage with a DOT freeze of funds).
Trying forward, it adjusted all the trajectory for EV adoption within the coming years downward versus the place it had been, however nonetheless on a climb after this 12 months—to 26% of the market by 2030, with fairly a variety for variation.
J.D. Energy U.S. EV market share forecast – February 2025
An increasing market, extra mass-market EVs
Whereas there’s all that uncertainty on the floor, and won’t appear to be EVs are gaining traction, there’s so much taking place from beneath. As J.D. Energy famous, there was a 58% rise in 2024 in what it referred to as “franchise EV gross sales.” Not together with direct-sales EV manufacturers like Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, Polestar, and others, these gross sales at conventional dealerships amounted to 376,000 items through the 12 months.
There’s additionally the truth that the tide is rising and the car market as a complete is in enlargement. In 2025, J.D. Energy forecasts 16.3 million whole gross sales—up 3% from 2024’s whole of 15.8 million gross sales. And a flat market share of EVs signifies that they’ll acquire by that very same share available in the market.
“We anticipate a flat retail share for EVs,” stated Tyson Jominy, J.D. Energy’s VP of information and analytics, to Inexperienced Automobile Stories. “With whole gross sales anticipated to develop 3%, so will EV gross sales.”
EV gross sales by quantity rose by about 7% in 2024, up from a complete share of about 8% of the market in 2023.
2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV
EV gross sales development nowhere near earlier forecasts
So whereas development remains to be taking place for the EV market in 2025, it’s far beneath what analysts had anticipated at first of 2024. Bloomberg analysts in January 2024 anticipated that EVs would attain a 13% U.S. market share in 2024, at 1.9 million autos, and the Worldwide Power Company, in April 2024, nonetheless anticipated that EVs would rise to 11% of the market in 2024.
Additional, pent-up demand for reasonably priced fashions and the pending arrival of a few of them, just like the Chevrolet Equinox EV and Ford’s pivot to EV affordability, led some, together with S&P World Mobility, to level to extra aggressive EV development for future years versus earlier forecasts.
However that every one modified with November’s election, when U.S. voters made a powerful assertion in opposition to a Biden administration imaginative and prescient that had included a longer-lens green-energy focus, a modernization of the auto business and provide chain round it, and incentives that rewarded U.S. manufacturing.
And there could also be some surges and stumbles but to the market in 2025, as coverage modifications. As an illustration, fourth-quarter 2024 EV gross sales have been up—by greater than 15% 12 months over 12 months—as dealerships noticed a run on purchases as a result of concern that the EV tax credit score may quickly be going away.
2025 Tesla Mannequin Y
The California issue—or Tesla issue, or Musk issue
It’s unattainable to evaluate EV gross sales and never embody a have a look at Tesla and its pronounced downward development in gross sales. After a few years of positive aspects, Tesla gross sales and deliveries fell in 2024—each internationally and throughout the U.S.
And Tesla’s California gross sales downturn was a key piece of that. Take Tesla out of the totals, and the California information tells a wildly totally different story. In accordance with it, California gross sales of non-Tesla EVs rose 21% in 2024, versus 2023. So particularly for California, 2024’s EV gross sales dip may need been a really Tesla-specific downside whereas EV customers flocked to different manufacturers and fashions that weren’t
In California, EV gross sales have amounted to about 30% of the gross sales whole, in response to the California New Automobile Sellers Affiliation, and greater than a 3rd of all EVs bought within the U.S. are bought within the Golden State. Lower than three years in the past California comprised an eighth of Tesla’s world deliveries.
Whereas in 2022, Tesla cracked 10% of the market share in what was once its house state, it’s now on a steep fall from favor—and contemplating how sharply gross sales of different EVs rose, it’s exhausting to level fingers to a sagging EV market.
Tesla’s 2024 gross sales totals in California (primarily based on registration information from Experian Automotive) dropped by 11.6% versus 2023, whereas its precise market share of all the California light-vehicle market dropped from 13.0% in 2023 to 11.6% in 2024. The Toyota Camry edged out the Tesla Mannequin 3 for the top-selling passenger automobile in California throughout 2023, whereas the Tesla Mannequin Y held on to its spot because the top-selling gentle truck.
Does Tesla’s California burnout lengthen to different states? It seems so. Tesla bought 611,755 autos within the U.S. in 2024, down almost 5% from the 2023 whole of 642,504, in response to Automotive Information, primarily based on registrations. So regardless of an enlargement of the EV market throughout the U.S., Tesla’s EV gross sales are in contraction elsewhere too, and it didn’t handle to provide gross sales positive aspects.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Cybercab occasion (screenshot) – Oct. 2024
Whereas there wasn’t vital EV gross sales development in California in 2024, as J.D. Energy pointed on the market was certainly new development within the EV sector coming from mass-market EV fashions, in addition to in New York, Florida, and Colorado, which have emerged as new EV gross sales hotspots.
To tease out the takeaway from one other angle, Tesla isn’t making up for its California sundown in these new states. Its California gross sales drop of almost 27,000 lands beneath its national-total gross sales drop of 31,000.
As a number of polls and market analyses concluded in 2024, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was getting in the way in which of Tesla gross sales as he turned overtly political after which a participant on the marketing campaign path—and now a “particular authorities worker” within the government department and, some have referred to as it, an unofficial member of President Trump’s cupboard.
Based mostly on these tendencies, and the quantitative tendencies rising from gross sales information in 2024, it is exhausting to think about J.D. Energy’s 3% EV market development in 2025 taking place by means of Tesla positive aspects.
As 2025 unfolds, it isn’t simply Musk and his memes, however the coverage he’s backing from the White Home itself, that may have an effect on how EV gross sales play out.
