BColdtimer wrote: US EV sales Data: Source “INSIDEEVs
2016 years sales totaled 158,614: average monthly figures about 13,000/month.
2017 years sales totaled 199,826: average monthly figures nearly 17,000/month.
These figures include all electric and Hybrids. I’m more interest in the growth of all electric light vehicles.
Growth in the 2017 year was 26% over 2016. This sales growth in isolation sounds good, but as I understand it US EV sales represented only 1.4% of all light vehicles sold in 2017. A 26% growth from basically nothing is still nothing relatively speaking. But you got start somewhere.
2018 sales started off with not much fanfare; January sales growth was not significant: 9% growth. January 12,049 vs. 11,004 in 2017. I think it was conceded that this was due to a lack of availability of product, hiding a pent up demand.
February to April 2018 sees a significant uptick:
| Month | 2018 | 2017 | Increase |
| Feb | 16,845 | 12,375 | 36% |
| Mar | 26,373 | 18,542 | 42% |
| Apr | 19,556 | 13,367 | 46% |
Most of this attributed to 8 models al of which obtained over 1,000 units a month in sales:
· BEV (100% electric): Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model 3, S & X models, Chev Bolt
· Hybrids: Toyota Prius Prime, Chev Bolt Volt, and Honda Clarity sales
Toyota Prius Prime almost broke over 3,000 units in sales in March. Close but no cookie. Model S hit 3,375 in March but this was probably due to delayed production in prior months.
Tesla Model three sold 3,820 and 3,750 units in March and April.
May and June continue this sub 50% sales growth trend.
| Month | 2018 | 2017 | Increase |
| May | 24,310 | 16,596 | 47% |
| June | 25,019 | 117,046 | 47% |
The significant contributors to this can be assigned to Tesla delivering about 6,000 Model 3’s per month. This is good overall for the year’s stats, but not really a good indication of future Ev penetration in light vehicle sales as a whole.
This trend would indicate that EV sales are now hitting 2% of the market in the US.
July of 2018 is where the Tesla Model three starts to impact the overall sales amounts and the % of EV sales in the US.
2018 EV sales 29,514 (vs. 2017’s 15,540) a 90% growth.
The Tesla Model 3 lays claim to 14,250 of this 29,514 cars: basically 50% of all sales in the month. And this is set to only grow more in volume and by default represent a higher percentage of monthly EV sales. Tesla could ignore the rest of the world and deliver the maximum amount of Model 3s to US customers to max out the Fed Tax credit before it expires at the end of 2019.
Critics could point out that most of the sales are to customers that can afford very expensive cars or monthly leases and do not represent the average consumer. And would not disagree with this. There are only so much units that could be sold into the higher end of the consumer market place. A higher end Model 3 at say $50,000 USD to $70,000 USD (and in Cdn that would be about $65,000 to $100,000) is not something that your average T4 worker would shell out for a vehicle.
And once built up demand for the model 3 is achieved it may not be more than this in any particular month. Time will tell on this.
So it looks like US sales of EV in the 2
ndhalf will probably be at a rate of 100% or higher in comparison to 2017, because of the emergence of the first mass-produced EV. For those of you who care, this is solely due to the vision of Tesla, non-one else.
So lets pray that Tesla survives their cash crunch and gets profitable. However they do it (go private, issue more shares, or get access to more funding from other sources)