EV adoption

When you look at sales at the brand level, things get a little worse for the American automaker. Volkswagen sold more EVs than anyone else in Europe last month, increasing by 61 percent to 23,514 units. As for Tesla? It fell to 11th place, with just 7,165 sales in total, a 49 percent decrease year on year.

Beating it to 10th place was China’s BYD. Barred from the US market by protectionist laws and now heavy new tariffs, BYD has focused instead on Europe. Its PHEVs have been selling strongly there, unaffected by tariffs aimed at BEVs, but even its BEV sales have now eclipsed Tesla, with 7,231 registrations last month.

“Although the difference between the two brands’ monthly sales totals may be small, the implications are enormous,” said Felipe Munoz, global analyst at JATO Dynamics. “This is a watershed moment for Europe’s car market, particularly when you consider that Tesla has led the European BEV market for years, while BYD only officially began operations beyond Norway and the Netherlands in late 2022.”

With all the announcements from automakers planning for more gasoline and hybrid cars in their future lineups, you’d think that electric vehicles had stopped selling. While that might be increasingly true for Tesla, everyone else is more than picking up the slack. According to analysts at Rho Motion, global EV sales are up 30 percent this year already. Even here in the US, EV sales were still up 28 percent compared to 2024, despite particularly EV-unfriendly headwinds.

Getting ahead of those unfriendly winds may actually be driving the sales bump in the US, where EV sales only grew by less than 8 percent last year, for contrast. “American drivers bought 30 percent more electric vehicles than they had by this time last year, making use of the final months of IRA tax breaks before the incentives are expected to be pulled later this year,” said Charles Lester, Rho Motion data manager.

With the expected loss of government incentives and the prospect of new tariffs that will add tens of thousands of dollars to new car prices, now is probably a good time to buy an EV if you think you’re going to want or need one.

Perhaps surprisingly, growth in the much more EV-tolerant European Union was barely higher, at 29 percent for the year to date, helped by a new tax on plug-in hybrid weight in France, Rho Motion says. Both Germany and the UK EV markets have grown by 40 percent this year.

China is speeding past the rest of the world in terms of electrifying its transportation, and unsurprisingly it comes out on top in Rho Motion’s data, with 35 percent growth for the year to date compared to 2024. Looking month by month shows an even more impressive 73 percent increase year over year, thanks to where the lunar new year fell in 2024 and 2025.

To do this, it eliminates “state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles.” That spells bad news for California and the 17 other states that follow the California Air Resources Board’s Zero Emissions Vehicles regulations. California has been granted waivers under the Clean Air Act to set emissions controls within its state borders, but the first Trump administration spent much time and energy battling CARB’s waiver.

The previous moves to block CARB’s waiver were partially successful and only reversed by the US Environmental Protection Agency just over a month ago.

The revised clean vehicle tax credit, which provides up to $7,500 in credit toward the purchase of a new EV, or up to $4,000 for the purchase of a used EV, also looks to be in trouble. The executive order also calls out “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies and effectively mandate their purchase by individuals, private businesses, and government entities alike by rendering other types of vehicles unaffordable.” However, as the clean vehicle tax credit is a part of the tax code, changes to it will require Congress to pass legislation to that effect.

As you might expect, environmental groups are not impressed. “The transition to electric vehicles is opening factories and putting people back to work across the country,” said Katherine García, Sierra Club director of the Clean Transportation for All campaign. “Instead of building upon progress we’ve made, Donald Trump remains intent on fear-mongering around electric vehicles and taking the US back in time while the rest of the world moves forward on auto innovation. Rolling back vehicle emission safeguards harms our health, our wallets, and our climate.”