Near the end of 2023, mainstream print media outlets (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post) were conveying the storyline that US consumers were not buying EVs at the rate expected of them by the legacy producers, causing the manufacturers to delay or suspend their EV investments. For example, the New York Times headlined a story “Automakers delay electric vehicle spending as demand slows” (Nov. 7, 2023). Relying on a single month of sales, the article cited a 10% slump in Mach-E sales. Citing no statistics, they argued that Tesla “has struggled to sell cars.” The article did cite some nine-month year-on-year sales statistics indicating that all Ford EVs were up 13% (compared to 7% for regular internal combustion cars). Note that many of the claims were not that EV sales were falling, but that they were failing to live up to some projections that the industry had floated when courting investors.
Why might the manufacturers want to downplay their accelerating EV sales? It may be just a coincidence, but at the same time the legacy manufacturers were pressuring the Biden Administration to weaken a rule specifying what counted as an EV for the purpose of meeting legal standards for the year 2030. The draft rule counted only “pure” EVs (battery electric EVs or BEVs) as electric cars for the purpose of meeting the sales targets for EVs in 2030, but the legacy manufacturers wanted to count both BEVs and plug-ins (PHEVs, which average about half the carbon emission reductions of BEVs and would double the number of qualifying compliance cars). The legacy manufacturers prevailed, the final rule counted both categories, and the media stories that had been reporting slumping EV sales abruptly vanished. Full-year 2023 EV sales were the highest reported to date, across virtually all regions and countries (rhomotion.com web site).
Now that the 2024 sales records are in, we can determine if there was in fact a slackening in demand for EVs as predicted for 2024. Rho Motion, an international EV consultancy, tracks demand at the international level (rhomotion.com/news/over-17-million-evs-sold-in-2024-record-year/). This web site summarizes, “Overall, global EV sales grew by 25% in 2024 compared to 2023.” China was up 40% (BEVs up 19%, PHEVs up 81%). They put the US and Canada EV market up 9%, though they cautioned that this pace was unlikely to be continued under Trump. Europe was down 3% (after subsidies were ended in late 2023), and the rest of the world was up 27%. The absolute market-share leader was Norway, with a 90% EV share among all new cars and light trucks.
The only notably declining market slice was for Tesla-Europe, for which EV sales in 2024 were down 60% in Germany, 72% in France (elsewhere reported as 63%), 75% in Spain, 18% in UK, 40% in Norway, 42% in Netherlands, 46% in Sweden, 40% in Denmark, and 31% in Portugal. Apparently, the Europeans in 2024 were looking askance at Tesla. Most commentators have drawn a connection to Musk’s recent antics, such as traveling to Germany in the midst of their election campaign to drum up support for the hard-right AfD party. His parting gesture at the rally was widely interpreted as a Nazi salute (Durango Herald/CPR: https//www.durangoherald.com/articles/in-colorado-booming-ev-market-tesla-is-losing-ground-to-nissan-leaf/). Think about how this would have played in the US if a foreign leader were to come to the US in the days prior to our election and plumped for the Proud Boys.
Tesla sales in the US also slumped year on year: down 5.6%, the first ever decline. Nonetheless, Tesla is still the largest EV seller in the US, with a 48.7% EV market share. The other manufacturer that was widely cited as facing declining consumer demand a year ago was Ford. According to Ford (media.ford.com>fourth-quarter-full-year-sales), year-on-year sales for the Mach-E were up 27%, for the Lightning up 39%, and for the E-transit up 64%. These generously exceed the overall trend of the US market for cars and light trucks: up 2.2%.
Drawing closer to home, how have EV sales trended in the Four Corners? High quality data are available only for Colorado (atlaspolicy.com/evaluateco/). See also the above link to the Durango Herald/CPR reporting of Musk’s Nazi salute). These two sources report that among 2024 new car registrations in Colorado the EV share has climbed to 17.2%, the highest of any state in the US (surpassing California). Considering all cars and light trucks on the road in Colorado, the EV share is up 1.8% to 3.6%. Naturally that share is not uniform throughout the state or our region. Here are county level statistics for EV percentage of all registered:
Archuleta (Pagosa Springs) 0.88%
La Plata (Durango) 1.97%
Montezuma (Cortez) 0.69%
San Juan (Silverton) 1.12%
San Miguel (Telluride) 2.86%
In terms of car models, the Nissan EVs (Ariya and Leaf) are up spectacularly (400-800%), due to some phenomenal leasing deals being offered in the Front Range. As for the nation, Tesla’s market share is slumping in Colorado (down 5%), which the Colorado Automobile Dealers’ Association (which does not represent Tesla) attributes to the lack of new Tesla models. The dealers’ association also asserts that subsidies for cars are immaterial and will not be hurt by Trump’s planned withdrawal of EV tax breaks.
