Much has been said about electric vehicle sales tumbling off a cliff in the U.S., but there's reason to believe that the latest downturn in sales is mostly a Tesla problem, not one affecting EVs in general. The bleak EV sales outlook of 2024 can be traced to weaker demand and subsequently-lower sales of market-leading Tesla vehicles, which saw a steep decline in sales this year compared to the first quarter of 2023. Meanwhile, most other automakers bolstering their lineups with EVs actually saw a healthy increase in pure-electric sales.
It looks like the market is conflating Tesla's tumble with one that's impacting the market overall, but that's not true according to data from Bloomberg and Cox Automotive. EVs from Ford, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, Rivian, Hyundai and Kia have seen a retail surge. Ford leads in growth with models like the F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E, while Hyundai and Kia came in with the least growth of the best-selling bunch for models such as the Ioniq 6 and EV6. But by any measure, automakers are enjoying a notable increase in quarterly EV sales expansion this year.
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