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As we all know, the US electric vehicle market had a great 3rd quarter due to the EV tax credit being given a death sentence, but how good was the quarter? And which models benefited the most? And which models somehow dropped the ball and even saw their sales decline? Let’s have a look.
Overall, EV sales (100% electric vehicle sales) were up 27% year over year, or by nearly 100,000 sales. Though, as we can see, that just followed the overall trend of EV sales growing year over year.
Compared to Q3 2023, sales were up 41%, or by nearly 130,000 sales. Compared to Q3 2022, sales were up …
Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.
As we all know, the US electric vehicle market had a great 3rd quarter due to the EV tax credit being given a death sentence, but how good was the quarter? And which models benefited the most? And which models somehow dropped the ball and even saw their sales decline? Let’s have a look.
Overall, EV sales (100% electric vehicle sales) were up 27% year over year, or by nearly 100,000 sales. Though, as we can see, that just followed the overall trend of EV sales growing year over year.
Compared to Q3 2023, sales were up 41%, or by nearly 130,000 sales. Compared to Q3 2022, sales were up 113%, or by more than 230,000 sales. Compared to Q3 2021, sales were up 256%, or by nearly 315,000 sales!
Solid growth year over year over year over year.
Using this old chart showing Tesla sales and non-Tesla EV sales as well as combined EV sales, we get some more interesting insights. As we can see looking at the top and bottom bars (the green bars), non-Tesla EV sales and EV sales overall had excellent growth year over year in the 3rd quarter. However, Tesla sales barely grew despite the tax credit going away. More on that later.
First, we have this super chart of sales by EV model:
Want to know where an EV model stood in relation to the pack? See if you can find it on that chart. At the top, though, you clearly have the #1 Tesla Model Y (114,897 sales) and then #2 Tesla Model 3 (53,857 sales). The competition is a lot tighter below, but there’s a clear grouping of the next four models, the #3 Chevrolet Equinox EV (25,085 sales), #4 Honda Prologue (22,236 sales), #5 Hyundai IONIQ 5 (21,999 sales), and #6 Ford Mustang Mach-E (20,177 sales).
To wrap up this piece, though, let’s look at how models’ sales changed from previous 3rd quarters to the 3rd quarter of 2025.
The Tesla Model Y came out on top again here, with 28,096 more sales than in Q3 2024 (32% growth). The Chevrolet Equinox EV saw its sales grow 15,313 (157%). The Hyundai IONIQ 5, meanwhile, grew its sales 10,409 (90%). The Volkswagen ID.4 was further down in absolute terms, but had 176% growth. The BMW i5 was even much further down in absolute terms, but tied the Equinox EV in percentage growth at 157%.
Looking back two years, the Equinox EV (25,085 sales growth) and Honda Prelude (22,236 sales growth) topped the charts, followed by the Tesla Model Y (19,358 sales growth), Hyundai IONIQ 5 (10,334 sales growth), and Audi Q6 e-tron (10,299 sales growth from nothing, zero).
However, there were also a bunch of models that saw their sales decline.
Lastly, we have a Q3 2025 comparison to Q3 2022. The Tesla Model Y was back on top here, followed at a distance by the Chevy Equinox EV, Honda Prologue, and Hyundai IONIQ 5, as well as plenty of others.
Down at the bottom, aside from the Chevy Bolt (which was not being produced for a while), there was the Tesla Model S! It’s quarterly sales declined by 7,277. Then there was the Rivian R1T, which was down by 3,613 sales, and the Tesla Model X, which was down by 2,960 sales.
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