In 2025, we predict that multiple factors will hit American electric vehicle market share like a hammer. Any of these individually could push EVs into a downturn, but together, this year is shaping up to be the make-or-break year for a technology that has become very politicized. Let’s examine some fact-based aspects of the electric vehicle market and see what they reveal.
A Big Drop In Tesla Deliveries Cannot Be “Made Up” By Other Automakers
Tesla’s market share in America has been near 50% for the past 24 months or so. Even in 2024, roughly one of every two EVs delivered in the United States was made by Tesla. 100% of Tesla’s production capacity is purpose-built for EVs and nothing else. Tesla has the most modern, most mature battery and EV motor supply chain in the world. Nearly all of the Tesla vehicles sold in the United States over the past two decades have been built in America by Americans. No other automaker has anywhere near the American-market EV manufacturing capacity that Tesla has created.
Each year for the past few years, Tesla has delivered over 600,000 EVs in America. Ford and GM both sold close to 100,000 units of EVs in total in 2024. Hyundai and Volkswagen delivered less, and the remaining EVs were spread among many small players. If Tesla drops by 33% in America in 2025, that means that roughly 200,000 fewer EVs will be sold. Given that Europe has already seen a nearly 50% decline in Tesla deliveries as of late, predicting that Tesla could drop by a third in America where crazed anti-Musk activists are burning Superchargers up, is not outlandish.
Does the entire automotive industry aside from Tesla have the capacity to boost their American-market deliveries by 200,000 units in 2025? Our educated guess is that they do not. To do so would mean that they have already inked supplier agreements to bring that many batteries and electric motors to their factories, and the reporting is simply not there that this has happened. If Tesla really nose-dives into oblivion, the industry could certainly retool to take advantage of that departure, but it’s unlikely the industry will have the ability to do it in 2025. Since there was virtually no American-market EV market share gain over the past 24 months, automakers could not justify a plan that would create big inventory increases. In Q4 of last year, EVs were being boosted with massive and historically high incentives and lease deals. That level of unprofitability was unsustainable, and no sane automaker said to themselves, “Let’s boost our delivery plan significantly in light of this terrible market for EVs that necessitates huge discounts and give-away leases.”
It’s Not Just Tesla Vehicles Musk Has Sullied – It’s America’s Best Public Charging Network
It isn’t just Tesla cars that the liberal left consider verboten now. It’s Superchargers, too. People feel so strongly about the anti-Tesla cancel culture they wish to foist on all EV buyers that they have taken to vandalizing the Superchargers. One Supercharger location, very near to my own home, was set on fire, and the authorities are considering it arson. With America’s best public charging network now off-limits to the liberal left, the attractiveness of owning an EV is diminished. For those who don’t have a home charger of their own, it is virtually impractical to consider and EV at this point in time.
The New Sheriff Is Not Pro-EV, and Congress Will Likely End Consumer-Facing EV Subsidies
Neither Donald Trump nor the new Congress is particularly supportive of tax breaks for pricey EVs. DOGE is targeting every aspect of the government, and Congress seems cooperative. If the general theme in Washington is one of fat-trimming, it’s hard to justify ongoing subsidies for fancy EVs. Particularly since the EV-advocacy media has been pretending for a year now that “EVs offer a better cost of ownership than conventional vehicles,” and “EV production costs will match those of conventional vehicles.” Ironically, the EV advocates who turn out imaginary stories about EV advantages have given the anti-subsidy crowd the rope with which to hang such subsidies.
If Manufacturer Subsidies and ZEV Credits Go Away, So Do EVs
Tesla’s profitability has been closely tied to back-end subsidies in the form of ZEV credits for years. It’s a sort of cap and trade scheme that requires automakers to pay Tesla if they can’t or won’t build enough of their own EVs to satisfy California’s EV mandates. Without this scheme that funnels money to Tesla, the whole EV Jenga castle comes crashing down. It won’t be long before the Trump administration realizes this. Will Elon still be Donald’s BFF when this is realized, or will they have the inevitable relationship meltdown that so many are predicting? Without Elon’s stake in this crazy program, it is very likely to die in late 2025. Automakers know this, and they will hedge their bets accordingly. Honda is building a flexible factory that allows them to shift back and forth between EV and non-EV powertrains. Other automakers are straight-up canceling their EV production capacity. This is why.
EV Mandates In States Outside California Are Easy Targets For Anti-EV Department Of Justice Litigators
The reason California can mandate EV sales minimums leading up to an outright ban on conventional powertrains at some point in the 2030s is that the Clean Air Act has a special waiver that allows California to manage its own air pollution. Pro-EV states like Massachusetts that are now adopting California’s EV mandates could easily be challenged in court by the new Trump executive branch. These copycat states have no such Clean Air Act on which to lean in their quest to manage vehicle powertrain technology. It won’t be long before the DOJ finds time in its schedule to slap down these state-by-state clean powertrain technology mandates.
Hybrid Electric Vehicle Deliveries Show Us Where the Market Is Headed In 2025
As January and February ended, important automakers other than Tesla have been publishing some delivery facts. Even those who are still seeing some small growth in battery-electric vehicles are seeing dramatically larger hybrid-electric vehicle sales gains. Battery-only jihadis like to say that “hybrids are just a bridge,” and they may be right in twenty or thirty more years. But as of today, hybrids are growing rapidly across all brands that offer them, and they don’t require cash on the dash, give-away leases, or financing deals to sell swiftly. Hybrids are electrified green vehicles that are profitable and much easier to ramp up than battery-only models. In 2025, hybrids are going to gain meaningful market share, and BEVs are going to lose meaningful market share. Call that a bridge if you like. We call it consumer preference.
Conclusion – EVs Will Lose Market Share in America in 2025
Our prediction is that Q1 won’t be a bloodbath for EVs in America but that by year-end, the market share of battery-only vehicles in this market will fall to about 6% from its now roughly 8% share, back to the share seen in 2023.
The folks who want to force you to own an EV have long considered Tesla’s vehicles the very best of the best. (This is not the author’s personal opinion.) Every EV expert considers the Tesla Supercharger network to be a country mile ahead of the unreliable and sparsely located DC chargers from a mishmash of second-tier providers. For EVs to gain market share in 2025, shoppers will need to put aside this fact and buy what the EV “experts” have long told everyone are second-tier EVs, and many will also have to give up using the now-targeted Superchargers. They may well have to pay fair market value for those EVs, which means prices $7.5K to $15K higher if a hostile-to-EVs Congress and executive remove consumer-facing and manufacturer subsidies. Even if buyers pivot, can automakers backfill the hole left by the anticipated reduction in Tesla vehicle deliveries?
Tell us your prediction for U.S. market EV deliveries in 2025.
What EV maker do you think is ready right now to add hundreds of thousands of units to make up for the Teslas that the liberal left will no longer even consider when shopping?
John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
Follow us today…
