U.S. sales of EVs and hybrids are each soaring, but there’s a key difference that distinguishes EVs: By and enormous, those which might be selling well remain priced as luxury goods.
That’s one in every of the takeaways from an electrified vehicle sales update, released Monday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Harnessing data from Wards Intelligence, the EIA found that hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and EVs combined added as much as 15.8% of light-duty vehicle sales through the third quarter of 2023, versus 12.3% and eight.5% for a similar periods in 2022 and 2021, respectively.
2014-2023 Sales of EV, hybrid, PHEV (U.S. EIA)
EV sales themselves have been strong. Within the third quarter, EVs, hybrid, and plug-in hybrids amounted to a combined 17.7% of auto sales, buoyed by sales gains for every vehicle type. By powertrain, the one powertrain type that’s consistently dropping within the sales mix is non-hybrid internal combustion models.
The EIA noted that the common transaction price for EVs fell 5% throughout the third quarter, to $50,283, bringing EVs inside $3,000 of the common vehicle price for the market as a complete. That features a 24% drop from EVs’ price peak in spring 2022, when every little thing from dealership EV markups to Tesla price hikes applied a premium that, for a time, eager buyers still stepped up and paid.
2023 Tesla Model Y – Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
But because the EIA results appear to suggest, there’s an unlimited socioeconomic barrier that EVs have yet to cross—despite tools that buyers can tap into just like the EV tax credit. Greater than 9 out of 10 EV sales nationwide were of vehicles classified as luxury models by Wards, while luxury models made up lower than one in five light-duty vehicle sales for the market as a complete.
Or, to place it one other way, EVs have made up lower than 2% of the non-luxury vehicle market. So setting luxury aside for the moment, that’s not nearly as impressive.
In all, the EIA summary serves to beg the query: Within the U.S. market, where are the reasonably priced EVs?
This Article First Appeared At www.greencarreports.com
