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Covering cleantech here at CleanTechnica, the core underlying point is to replace fossil-fueled technology with zero-emissions technology that won’t cook our planet. When it comes to electric vehicles, the aim is not just to sell more EVs, but to also sell fewer fossil-fueled vehicles.
With record high EV sales in the USA in the 3rd quarter, and EVs representing more than 10% of sales for the first time (10.6%), one would think that fossil-fueled vehicle sales would be down whi…
Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.
Covering cleantech here at CleanTechnica, the core underlying point is to replace fossil-fueled technology with zero-emissions technology that won’t cook our planet. When it comes to electric vehicles, the aim is not just to sell more EVs, but to also sell fewer fossil-fueled vehicles.
With record high EV sales in the USA in the 3rd quarter, and EVs representing more than 10% of sales for the first time (10.6%), one would think that fossil-fueled vehicle sales would be down while EV sales were strongly up. Unfortunately, that’s not how things played out.
In fact, fossil-fueled vehicle sales were the highest they had been in the 3rd quarter for years. I only went back to Q3 2021 in creating the charts for this article, so then I wondered, how far back do you have to go to find a bigger 3rd quarter for gasmobiles? I figured that 2020 must have been much lower due to COVID-19, but I guess recovery was underway enough at that point that Q3 2020 was bigger. Fossil-fueled vehicles reached 3,854,984 sales in Q3 2020, compared to 3,712,110 in Q3 2025. Digging through the numbers in my spreadsheet more deeply, I also found that Q3 2019 logged 4,275,000 fossil-fueled vehicle sales, many more than Q3 2020 or Q3 2025. So, in that regard, I guess we can say things have improved. But we have a long way to go.
Here’s how Q3 fossil-fueled vehicle sales changed in recent years, followed by two similar charts for electric vehicle sales:
Here are the charts again in another form:
So, yes, electric vehicles were up more than fossil-fueled vehicles (unless you look at volume changes compared to 2022 and 2021), but fossil-fueled vehicles were up nonetheless. What happens in the 4th quarter?
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Zachary Shahan
Zach is tryin’ to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about electric vehicles and renewable energy at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.
Zachary Shahan has 8611 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan
