Tesla Is Once Again Buoying The EV Market Following The Death Of Federal EV Incentives

We all knew electric vehicle registrations were going to take a turn for the worse in October, the first month after President Trump and his administration killed the federal EV tax incentive. While there was a definite dropoff, the year-over-year difference was actually milder than anticipated because of gains posted by Tesla. Still, EVs’ share of the light-vehicle market fell to 6.9% in October from 7.6% a year earlier after 86,782 BEVs were registered. 

Of those, 49,989 were from Tesla (57.6% of the whole EV market), which saw an 11% registraion increase from October of 2024. The Model Y alone surged 55% to 33,536 registrations. The Model S also saw a 10% gain. Meanwhile. The Model 3, Model X and Cybertruck saw declines during the month.

The rest of the top five OEMS started with Ford in a distant second place with 5,070 registrations (down 23%), Chevrolet with 5,068 registrations (down 31%), Cadillac with 4,763 registrations (up 93%) and Rivian with 3,836 registrations (up 10%). Overall, October’s registrations were about half of September’s, and while that difference is stark, it’s important to remember how many people were flocking to dealerships to take advantage of the $7,500 tax credit before it went away. From Automotive News:

Despite the volatility of EV demand in recent months, battery-electric models were still on pace to beat last year’s numbers.

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For January through October, EV registrations rose 11 percent from a year earlier to 1.14 million. EV share increased to 8.4 percent of the light-vehicle market from 7.8 percent, the data showed.

Tesla, Rivian and Lucid […] all posted registration gains in October. The three pure-EV makers also ranked among the top 10 by volume for the month.

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Rivian’s October registrations rose 10 percent to 3,836, good for fifth among EV brands. The R1T pickup gained 10 percent, the R1S crossover fell 15 percent and its EDV vans surged 126 percent.

Rivian captured 4.4 percent of the EV market, up from 3.5 percent in October 2024.

Lucid registrations rose 163 percent to 1,630 vehicles for 10th place among EV brands in October. The Air sedan posted 1,175 registrations while the Gravity crossover contributed 455, the data showed. Lucid launched the Gravity in December 2024.

Lucid’s EV share tripled versus October last year to 1.9 percent.

By far and away, legacy automakers fared worse in September than dedicated EV makers. Ford saw the Mach-E and F-150 Lightning both suffer sales drops and Chevy’s Equinox EV fell 30%. One bright spot was Cadillac, which was bolstered by the Optiq and Vistiq — two excellent crossovers that weren’t on sale last year.

Things are looking worse for 2026. Morgan Stanley estimates that EV volume is going to fall about 20%, bringing the market share down to about 6.5% as a result. It seems that all the hard work of automakers to build up these EVs is going down the drain… quickly.