Q1 2025 U.S. EV Sales Update

The U.S. is one of the most important EV markets in the world for the simple fact that it will generate one of the largest overall revenue opportunities for this transition as a single country. To date, the U.S. automotive industry generates over $1.5 trillion in retail sales. The monthly Advance Retail Sales report breaks these sales down in aggregate by motor vehicle and parts dealers. Of this $1.5 trillion, approximately $1.1 trillion or nearly 75% is directly associated with new car dealers - this is the clear market opportunity for the U.S. EV transition. 

U.S. EV Sales Q1 2025 highlights:

• 2025 last twelve-month (LTM) U.S. EV sales stood at 1.33 million, up 11.8 percent from 2024 and up 10.2 percent from Q1 2024. With light weight U.S. vehicle sales annualized at approximately 17.8 million, EV penetration has marginally dropped to 7.5 percent, compared with four percent during 2021. 

• In 2021, Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) held a 75 percent market share across U.S. EV sales, as of Q1 2025, TSLA’s market share has dropped to 46.6 percent from the prior quarter’s 48 percent. TSLA delivered approximately 622,000 EVs during the LTM 2025 in the U.S., a 12,000 decline from the prior quarter.

• Aside from TSLA, General Motors Company (GM) and Ford Motor Company (F) both hit north of 100,000, followed by Hyundai at just below 70,000 with those next in line near 50,000. 

Top EV OEMs during 2025 by U.S. EV sales market share included:

Recent takeaways:

• GM and F deliveries continue to lead with GM distancing itself across its peers. But GM’s strongest performing model is still sub-40,000.

• TSLA’s market share drop likely will continue to drop, but as mentioned with GM, investors will be best suited shifting their overall OEM concerns to make and model performance; TSLA’s Model Y U.S. sales are 6 times greater than the next company, while overall sales are just less than 5 times GM.  

• Despite the recent declines TSLA’s Cybertruck still remains healthily ahead of F’s F-150 Lightning, while RIVN has slipped further behind when comparing their EDVs/RTs with F’s Lightning/E-transit.

• Newer innovators continue to go bankrupt.

Disclosure: The Investor Cornerstone+ portfolio owns RIVN and TSLA which are core holdings. For all other companies mentioned in this blog there is no desire or intent to take any action to buy the stock directly, to purchase calls, or to purchase puts for the foreseeable future.