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Battery-electric vehicles have not been making meaningful market share gains in America since they surpassed 7.6% in 2023. There have been some good months, and share rose as high as about 8.1% in some quarters, but then there would be 6% months to follow. Regardless of how you torture the data, the truth is, 92% or more of Americans never wanted to buy an EV in any given quarter. Then the Big Beautiful Bill put an expiration date on the decades-long subsidies that EVs have enjoyed.
That expiration date is September 30th. I’ve written multiple articles and created a lot of social media posts telling buyers of all vehicles, EVs, and other styles, that purchasing in the first half of the year was a good idea. Incentives were strong, subsidies in full effect, inventory more robust than at any point in the last half-decade, and there are many great lease deals to be enjoyed. July was unique because it was a month in which it became apparent that the free money being poured into EVs at both the consumer end and manufacturing end were going to expire September 30th. In response to this, EV market share went up a smidge. Sadly, the estimated gain was just 1% over previous highs.
We won’t have the August numbers for a couple of weeks, but any uptick for EV deliveries is a good thing if you are a fan of EVs. The worrisome news is that it was just a 1% or so gain. Cox Automotive has the industry’s best public data on EV market share, and the group estimated EV market share for the one month of July at 9.1%. Mind you, that’s not the year-to-date running average EV market share. That’s lower at someplace between 7 and 8% as of today.
This small 1% uptick has me wondering if EVs will do either of these two things:
1) Will EV market share in the U.S. pass 10% in either August or September?
2) Will the full-year 2025 EV market share show an overall increase from the roughly 8% in 2024?
Why does it matter? Well, if you are an EV advocate, it matters because you want EVs to show gains. If you’ve been following EVs for a while, you may remember the breathless articles fantasizing about EVs one day having a “hockey stick” shaped spike in market share. That never happened. Or perhaps you recall all of the EV advocacy publications publishing articles about “logarithmic” or “exponential” growth? Well, neither of those two things happened unless the exponent is 1.
It’s been 28 years now since the modern age of battery electric vehicles in America dawned. It has been 27 years since the first battery-electric RAV4 EV in America. Seventeen years since Tesla sold its first EV in America. Fifteen and a half years since the first Nissan Leaf delivery in America. And despite this long history and an unprecedented push by state and federal governments to mandate minimum sales of EVs, 91% of Americans still didn’t buy one when they shopped last month. There were months this year when 94% of buyers opted not to take home an EV.
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There are many staunch EV advocates, fans, and owners in the U.S. Many own multiple EVs right now, and many will want to update an older EV before the deadline to get a big tax incentive. This, coupled with fence-sitters, should give the EV market share number a bit of a boost in the last quarter of free money.
There are other factors that could help EV market share grow. Here are some facts pulled from Cox Automotive reports published over the last two weeks that point to a healthy EV buying environment for August and September:
-The average transaction price (ATP) for new electric vehicles declined to $55,689, reflecting a 2.2% decrease from June and a 4.2% decline year-over-year.
-New-vehicle prices of all styles included were unchanged in July (no increase in prices). That means ICE cars increased slightly while EVs decreased slightly.
-The average new-vehicle listing price at the end of July decreased by 0.3% month over month, down by $154 to $48,480, the lowest since late April.
-Incentives ranged from 14.5% to 27.7% of ATP in July.
-Overall vehicle retail sales were up in both June and July
-The auto sector outperformed the rest of the retail market. Sales of motor vehicles and parts increased 1.6% in July.
-Consumer spending remained strong in July, especially on motor vehicles and parts.
-August opened with total new-vehicle inventory at 2.68 million vehicles, with an average days’ supply of 73. (healthy inventory levels)
-Despite tariffs, consumer prices have not seen significant increases.
With the end of subsidies for battery-electric vehicles now less than six weeks away, I’m going to make some market share predictions. Here they are:
1) August BEV market share will approach 10%, but not pass that mark.
September BEV market share will pass 10% and perhaps go as high as 10.5%.
Q4 U.S. BEV market share will be a bloodbath and will drop back to 2023 levels or lower.
2) Full year EV market share will be within a few tenths of prior best year highs (8.1%).
So what say you? Will EVs have a great Q3 as they head toward a Thelma and Louise-style drive off a cliff, or will they underperform, indicating that more than nine out of ten American car buyers are simply not that interested in battery-electric vehicles? Please post your predictions and thoughts in the comments section below.John Goreham is the Vice President of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
Top of page rendering created with AI tool. Chart of EV market share by John Goreham. Image of Ford EVs on a lot in August 2025 by John Goreham.
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Source: torquenews.com
