EV Sales in the US Lagged in 2025 as Global Demand Keeps Climbing

Published: Jun 10 2026, 02:10 AM EDT

EV sales in the United States slipped in 2025 even as demand for electric vehicles continued to climb in Europe, China, and other global markets.

Data from Cox Automotive and Kelley Blue Book show that U.S. battery electric vehicles (BEVs) accounted for 7.8% of new light‑vehicle sales in 2025, down from 8.1% in 2024, marking the first annual decline in EV market share since the segment began scaling.

Total U.S. EV sales fell about 2% year over year, with volume just below the roughly 1.30 million units sold in 2024, despite 2025 being the second‑strongest year on record, according to Rest of World.

The pullback followed a sharp fourth‑quarter slump, when EV share dropped to 5.8% after peaking at 10.5% in the third quarter.

Drop of EV Sales in the US

Analysts link the late‑year collapse in U.S. EV sales to the end of federal tax incentives on Sept. 30, 2025, which led many buyers to pull purchases forward into the third quarter.

After the credit expired, fourth‑quarter EV volume fell 46% from the prior quarter and 36% year over year, reaching the lowest quarterly level since late 2022.

Several models recorded declines of more than 50% in Q4 compared with a year earlier, according to industry data cited by Car and Driver.

Automaker performance in the U.S. EV market was mixed, with Tesla remaining dominant but losing share to legacy manufacturers. Tesla's U.S. EV sales fell to about 589,000 units in 2025, down 7% from around 634,000 in 2024, trimming its share from roughly 49% to 46%.

General Motors, by contrast, sold more than 150,000 EVs, up 48% year over year, and lifted its share of the U.S. EV market from 8.8% to 13.2%, led by Chevrolet and Cadillac models, Clean Technica reported.

Growing Global EV Demand

While U.S. growth slowed, global EV demand accelerated in 2025, driven largely by China and Europe.

Research cited by Reuters indicates global EV registrations rose about 20% in 2025 to roughly 20.7 million vehicles, with December alone nearing 2.1 million units.

Strategy& and PwC report that global battery electric sales in the first quarter of 2025 jumped 42% year over year, pushing BEVs to a record 16% market share across 40 tracked markets.

China and Europe emerged as the main engines of this growth. China accounted for about 71% of global EV registrations in 2025, with BEV sales up 55% in the first quarter and BEVs reaching 27% market share in that period.

In Europe, EVs outpaced pure gasoline cars in the European Union for the first time, and in December 2025 they captured 22.6% market share, edging ahead of gas‑only vehicles, as per Reuters.