It’s a bloodbath.<\/p>\n
\n Loading audio narration…\n <\/p>\n
New first-quarter 2026 EV<\/a> sales estimates from Cox Automotive show the US electric-vehicle market shrinking sharply, with total sales down 27% year over year to about 216,000 units.<\/p>\n Nearly every major automaker posted steep declines, underscoring how brutal the market has become without federal incentives.<\/p>\n The broader takeaway is stark. Without subsidies, most EV makers don’t have the scale to turn a profit in the US and are losing ground fast. Tesla’s scale continues to translate into dominance, while rivals face a brutal reality: in this market, volume isn’t just an advantage, it’s survival.<\/p>\n The only standouts from Cox Automotive’s report were Tesla<\/a>, which sold a lot more Model Y<\/a> vehicles and retained strong market share, and Toyota<\/a>, which grew from a small base.<\/p>\n Ford’s EV sales plunged 70%, BMW fell more than 60%, and Volkswagen collapsed nearly 90%. Honda pulled an EV from the US market recently, and VW killed its last EV<\/a> in this market.<\/p>\n Even previously aggressive players such as Hyundai were essentially flat, while Nissan and Mercedes saw demand evaporate. The pattern is clear: low volume and high costs are crushing legacy automakers’ EV ambitions.<\/p>\n There were only a few bright spots.<\/p>\n Toyota stood out, albeit from a small base. Its EV sales jumped about 79% year over year to roughly 10,000 units, boosting its market share to 4.6%. General Motors, through Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC, held on to more than 10% of the US market.<\/p>\n Tesla, meanwhile, remains in a league of its own. The company sold 117,300 EVs in Q1, giving it a commanding 54% share of the US market. While Tesla’s overall sales fell 8%, the Model Y was a standout, with deliveries rising nearly 23% to almost 79,000 units in the first quarter \u2014 by far the best-selling EV in the US.<\/p>\n It’s not all positive news for Tesla. The company has been hit hard by a slowing overall demand for electric vehicles. Despite Tesla’s March report of a 6% increase in global sales<\/a> in the first quarter, the company missed Wall Street expectations.<\/p>\n Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Higher gas prices at the pump could mean demand for EVs recovers. We’ll see when the Q2 numbers come in.<\/p>\n Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here<\/a>. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s a bloodbath. Loading audio narration… New first-quarter 2026 EV sales estimates from Cox Automotive show the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,3426,253204,21255,43900,253207,253203,253205,2853,253206,1019,20340,34984,253202,7462,2394],"class_list":{"0":"post-575898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-company","10":"tag-cox-automotive","11":"tag-demand","12":"tag-ev","13":"tag-ev-bloodbath","14":"tag-ev-sale-estimate","15":"tag-only-standout","16":"tag-report","17":"tag-strong-market-share","18":"tag-tesla","19":"tag-toyota","20":"tag-unit","21":"tag-us-electric-vehicle-market","22":"tag-volume","23":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}