US Non-Tesla Plug-In EV Car Sales Charted: May 2019

We can hardly see any growth of plug-in electric car sales outside of the Tesla brand in the U.S., but hopefully, it will improve

By: Mark Kane

Jun 11, 2019 at 8:26am ET

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The latest plug-in EV car sales results in the U.S. with low growth (despite a huge increase by the Tesla brand) prompts us to check the stats more deeply, not only by separating BEV/PHEV, but also non-Tesla plug-ins and non-Tesla all-electric car sales.

In May 2019, total plug-in sales amounted 28,386 sales (confirmed or estimated by IEVs), which is a 16.8% increase compared to May 2018. However, most of those sales were Teslas.

The general sales chart shows us that the market is expanding (recently slower than when the Tesla Model 3 peaked in late 2018).

All-electric/Plug-in hybrids

The reason behind the low growth is that the plug-in hybrid category is decreasing and all the gains come from all-electric models, which account for 60-80% of the total this year.

BEVs YTD: 76,382 (up 50.6% year-over-year)
PHEVs YTD: 34,505 (down 28.9% year-over-year)

The slowdown of the plug-in hybrid was recently experienced in Europe too, although not necessarily all the reasons are the same.

Non-Tesla all-electric car sales

Tesla growth was tremendous over the past 12-months, but other BEVs are struggling to expand, despite some new models being added to the pool.

The non-Tesla BEV sales amounted:

YTD: 18,207 (up 2.6% year-over-year)
12-months: 44,600 (down 13.1% year-over-year)

Here it's better seen that not much is happening, although the 31.6% increase in May was the highest in over a year. Hopefully, it will continue to rise.

Non-Tesla plug-in car sales

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Knowing the situation on the BEV side, and that the plug-in hybrids are decreasing, the total non-Tesla plug-in sales inevitably show a decline:

YTD: 52,711 (down 20.4% year-over-year)
12-months: 156,139 (down 2.2% year-over-year)

Market outlook

As we are approaching summer it will be very difficult to note any sales gains due to record results in 2018 when the Tesla Model 3 was at its peak. The only way would be a new Tesla model or better performance of other plug-ins. The base case scenario is that June and July will be the last two months of continued growth since October 2015.