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We just looked at overall electric vehicle sales in the United States in the 1st quarter of 2025 compared to the 1st quarter of the previous four years. Overall, the sales trend is great. Sales of fully electric vehicles (EVs) were up 200% compared to Q1 2021. While Tesla still accounts for 43% of the market, though, it saw sales declines compared to the previous three years, and non-Tesla EV sales were up 472% (rather than 200%) in Q1 2025 versus Q1 2021. But — let’s look more closely model-specific sales.
The Tesla Model Y and Tesla Model 3 are still far ahead of any other models — so far ahead that they warp the chart. However, they warp the chart less than in previous quarters! In fact, rather than their sales being about 10 times higher than all non-Tesla models, the Model Y and Model 3 are now seeing “just” about 5 to 6 times more sales than the 3rd and 4th best selling electric models. Those would be the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Chevrolet Equinox EV, respectively, the only other models to have more than 10,000 sales in the quarter.
After those top models, there’s actually a pretty consistent, gradual slide downward in 1st quarter sales. Small to midsize SUVs/crossovers seem to do particularly well, but the Ford F-150 Lightning and Tesla Cybertruck also sneak into the top 10. Interestingly, the F-150 Lightning actually took back the title of #1 electric pickup truck from the Cybertruck. Meanwhile, the BMW i4 joined the Tesla Model 3 as the only other car in the top 10.
In terms of year-over-year sales increases and decreases …
… The Honda Prologue broke the chart, going from 19 sales in the 1st quarter of 2024 as it began to trickle into the market to 9561 sales in the 1st quarter of 2025. So, yeah, I had to remove that from the chart, and also dropped the Chevy Blazer EV while I was at it since it grew from 600 sales in Q1 2024 to 6,187 sales in Q1 2025.
Looking at the adjusted chart, it’s a very interesting mix of vehicles at the top of the chart for sales growth — Toyota BZ4X (+196%), Subaru Solterra (+173%), Mercedes EQB (+142%), Tesla Cybertruck (+129%), Chevy Silverado EV (+125%), GMC Hummer EV (+109%), Nissan LEAF (+103%), Genesis GV70 (+72%), Tesla Model 3 (+70%). There’s no real rhyme or reason to that list.
Unfortunately, a couple dozen models saw their sales decline, and not just discontinued models. Well, I guess this is another sign of a maturing market, though. There are dozens of models, and some are beating out others in their class. And that can flip back and forth for various reasons — new model entrants, promotional campaigns, refreshes, etc.
Just looking at volume change, we get a bit of a different story. The Tesla Model 3 rebounded a bit for the biggest volume growth year over year (+21,678), the Chevy Equinox EV was a clear second (+10,329), and the Honda Prologue was a strong third place (+9,542). On the other end, the Tesla Model Y lost 32,678 sales, the Chevy Bolt EV/EUV (discontinued) lost 7,027 sales, and the Mercedes EQE lost 4,371 sales.
Here, again, we have an extreme case — massive growth from the GMC Hummer EV going from 2 sales to 3,479 sales. So, let’s look at the chart with the Hummer EV removed.
In general, given that this is a two-year change, we see a lot of models at the top of the chart here that were introduced about two years ago and have matured into much higher sales levels. And then the bottom of the chart has models that have been phased out.
To end, looking at volume change from two years ago, we have several new models at the top (Chevy Equinox EV, Honda Prologue, Tesla Cybertruck, Chevy Blazer EV, Acura ZDX), but we also have significant increases in sales from some older models (Ford Mustang Mach-E, Rivian R1S).
Down at the bottom, we have the huge drop in sales of the Tesla Model Y (which has a refreshed version coming, and had production line retooling in Q1, but also suffered from backlash to Elon Musk’s extreme political shenanigans). Then we’ve got the discontinued Chevy Bolt EV/EUV again. Unfortunately, several other EVs dropped in sales by more than a thousand units with less obvious reasons, including the Rivian R1T, Mercedes EQS, and Volkswagen ID.4 — but perhaps that’s just the price to pay for growing competition.
Are there any other notable highlights (or lowlights) you see in the charts above?
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