Tesla continues to dominate the US electric car sales market, which can make it seem as though not much is changing here. However, the biggest story is probably that the US electric car market as a whole continues to grow strongly. In 2022, our analysis shows that BEV sales increased 65% compared to 2021. (Note: there are a few models we don’t track since automakers don’t split out BEV sales of a model from ICE sales of a model, or don’t report sales at all — but these sales are negligible in the grand scheme of the US BEV market.)
Just looking at the 4th quarter, BEV sales were 72% higher than in the 4th quarter of 2021! So, the sales growth is apparently only speeding up even as the market gets bigger — for now, at least.
The 4th quarter of 2022 was the 7th consecutive quarter in which US BEV sales increased. The last time there was a quarter-over-quarter decrease was from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021, when sales decreased just slightly from 95,203 to 94,084. By Q4 2022, though, the market was up to 235,133. That’s a 147% increase in just two years.
US BEV sales trends from 2019 through 2022, including Tesla vs. other automakers. Click to embiggen.
Looking at Tesla, the big dog in the US market, sales increased 32% in Q4 2022 compared to Q4 2021, increased 43% in 2022 compared to 2021 as a whole, and increased 84% from Q4 2020 to Q4 2o22. That’s great growth, but what we see here is that the US BEV market as a whole is growing faster than Tesla on its own — which makes sense when you consider that several attractive, somewhat mass-market BEV models have been launched in the past year or two.
US BEV sales by model in Q4 2022. Click to embiggen.
Here are the BEV totals we have from the past 4 years for the US market:
- 2022 — 762,883
- 2021 — 462,247
- 2020 — 245,586
- 2019 — 230,761
Here are the Tesla totals for the US market:
- 2022 — 510,058
- 2021 — 356,984
- 2020 — 204,274
- 2019 — 186,636
US BEV sales by model in 2022. Click to embiggen.
Clearly, when you compare those numbers, the US BEV market is built on the Tesla market. Nonetheless, let’s take one more look at totals for the past 4 years, this time looking at the non-Tesla BEV totals:
- 2022 — 252,825
- 2021 — 105,263
- 2020 — 41,312
- 2019 — 44,125
There is very solid growth there from 2020 to 2021 (+155%), but then even much stronger volume growth from 2021 to 2022 and nearly as much percentage growth (+140%). The US BEV market is finally forming!
In the 4th quarter of 2022, non-Tesla US BEV sales increased a whopping 269% compared to the 4th quarter of 2021! They went from 23,053 sales to 85,133 sales.
EV disruption isn’t just for China and Europe. The USA can have it, too!
Any other thoughts on the US BEV market numbers and trends?
I don’t like paywalls. You don’t like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don’t like paywalls, and so we’ve decided to ditch ours.
Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It’s a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So …
