Electric Vehicle Sales: Winners and Losers

• Electric vehicle sales are down, but just barely, and that’s just for July.

• Second-quarter EV sales were actually up 11.3% compared to the same period last year.

• But not all automakers are hitting on a winning EV formula, with some finding a much easier time moving their electrified sheetmetal.

There’s no question that electric vehicle sales are down, but not by large amounts. According to the Argonne National Laboratory, a total of 122,997 plug-in vehicles (100,677 battery electrics and 22,329 plug-in hybrids) sold to US customers in July. Is that less than the same month a year ago? Yes, but only by 1.2%.

And EV sales were up 11.3% in the second quarter of 2024, compared to the same period last year. Total EV sales were 330,463, a record high.

If you’re wondering why EVs (and especially Teslas, even Cybertrucks) are becoming a common sight on American roads, it’s because 847,287 plug-ins have been sold this year alone, and more than five million since 2010.

In 2023, 1.19 million were sold (up 47% from 2022, and yielding a 7.6% market share). Yes, the ledger is tilting to plug-in hybrids over battery cars, at least for the time being.

But obviously, some battery models are doing well and others rather poorly. It’s possible, then, to name some winners. Customers clearly want Teslas (even older models), the Ford Mustang Mach E, the Kia EV6 and EV9, the Chevrolet Bolt EUV, Cadillac Lyriq, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Rivian R1S, and the VW ID.4.

Companies that wish they were doing better include BMW, Polestar, Lucid, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi.

In terms of brands via the KBB.com Electric Vehicle Sales Report, Tesla’s EV market share is sinking (to 49.7%), but the company is still the sales leader by a wide margin, with 162,264 vehicles sold in the second quarter, but that story is well known.

Ford did modestly well, with 23,957 EVs moved in Q2. Ford sold more than 24,000 F-150 Lightning trucks in 2023, a 55% sales increase from 2022, but then it hit slower sales. GM was not far behind Ford, delivering 21,930 EVs in the second quarter, up 40% year over year.

Kia, benefiting from smart design and affordable pricing, saw 17,980 EVs sold in the US during the second quarter, up 135% from 7,636 of the same period in 2023. The three-row EV9 alone sold 9,671. Hyundai, with the same advantages, was right behind, with 16,815, showing the strength of the Ioniq brand. BMW was at 14,081.

Mercedes EV sales were 9,270 in the period—down steeply from 12,250 in the first quarter. Chevrolet had a brighter picture, with 11,217 (and Cadillac at 7,294). Audi was middling at 5,407. Startup brand Rivian is not without challenges, but it did manage to sell 13,790 trucks and pickups in Q2, and did far better than rival Lucid, which was at 1,855.

Wards Intelligence provides January-June sales by model, and clear stars emerge. Leaving aside the whopping 190,375 Tesla Model Ys, 15,485 Model Xs, and 56,413 Model 3s sold (even the long-in-the-tooth Model S was at 7,137), there were 22,234 Mustang Mach Es delivered to customers (up 58.4% from the previous year) and 15,645 F-150 Lightnings.

Ford’s total sales in the first half were a respectable 44,180, including the E-Transit (6,301, double the year before). Ford isn’t realizing its goals with Lightning sales, and is slowing production.

Hyundai is a sales leader in the first half of the year, with 18,728 Ioniq 5s and 6,912 Ioniq 6s sold. Rivian sold 14,101 Rivian R1S, and Kia moved 9,671 EV9s and 10,941 EV6s. The upscale Cadillac Lyriq is performing well at 13,094 (doubling sales of the Mercedes EQE). The Toyota bZ4X EV and its Subaru Solterra sibling had a decent first half, with 9,468 and 5,385 first-half sales, respectively.

The VW ID.4 sold strongly, reaching 11,857 sales in the first half. And although the VW Group’s Porsche Taycan did only moderately well, at 2,618, it (and the Lucid Air at 2,850) are both outselling all the Audi, BMW, and Mercedes EV sedans.

Consumers prefer the Chevrolet Bolt EUV (5,635) over the regular Bolt (2,779) by a margin of two to one. Taken together with the Hyundai Ioniq results, it shows a clear preference for SUV-shaped vehicles over sedans, even when the platform is not much different.

The Tesla Cybertruck is coming out of the gate relatively strongly, with 7,990 in the first half. And others showing signs of life in the first half were the Audi Q4 e-tron (5,108), the Mercedes EQE CUV (5,005), and Audi Q8 e-tron crossover (4,620). The Nissan Leaf was hanging in there at 3,067.

Also-rans in the first half include the Polestar 2 (1,685), the Mercedes EQE (1,647), the Audi e-tron GT (1,393), and the BMW i7 (a dismal 453, down 49.2% from the results in 2023, when it launched). BMW definitely expected more from the new i5 sedan than 289 sales in the first half, but production constraints might be a factor.

In the first half of 2023, the i4 was crushing it, with 11,361 sales. But one year later, those sales dropped by a factor of 10, to a mere 1,868 units in first-half 2024. The larger BMW iX crossover has performed quite well this year, at 6,490, basically unchanged from a year ago.

The insight is hardly novel: Americans love big, roomy SUVs, whatever the powertrain. The 2025 Cadillac Escalade iQ should probably do well for that reason, despite being expensive ($129,990).

The bottom line is that the EV sales picture is mixed. Expensive electric sedans aren’t selling well (unless they’re Teslas), and electric supercars are not charging out of the gate, either. But when clever design meets versatility, steady sellers can emerge—and even a few out-of-the-park hits.

How closely are you watching EV sales? Are the results having any impact on your car shopping? Please comment below.