Tesla Dominates US EV Market with Record Q3 Sales – 2025 Analysis

To take a look at the headlines involving Tesla over the last year, you might assume the worst. The Cybertruck isn’t selling as well as expected, we’re seeing one recall after another, and the stock nosedive that occurred early this year didn’t really correct itself until September. One can’t help but imagine Elon Musk waking up every morning thinking “now what?”

But, as it turns out, it takes more than a year of bad news to topple America’s leading electric carmaker. With 2025’s third sales quarter on the books, the data shows Tesla selling more EVs in the US than all of its competitors combined. Here’s what you need to know.

Tesla Sold Close To Half A Million EVs In Q3 Alone

Tesla sold 437,487 electric vehicles in the US during the third quarter of 2025. This represents a 29.6% jump over last year’s Q3 reports, and a 40.7% jump over this year’s second quarter. This points to a broader trend, being an uptick in EV sales overall throughout the third quarter.

Not to pull a shoulder patting ourselves on the back, but we called it. Okay, to be fair, it was actually John Vincent, the senior editor, Vehicle Testing for US News & World Report, who told us a month ago to look for a sales spike in the third quarter, owing to drivers trying to secure a loan or a lease term before the EV credits expired at the end of September.

In Mr Vincent’s words: “Demand for new cars has been artificially boosted for the last several months, first with shoppers trying to beat the Trump import taxes, and now by the expiring federal EV tax credit.” Now, a key word there is “artificially,” that is, we can’t expect this momentum to carry on through to the end of the year.

Expect EVs To Keep Getting More Expensive From Here

Tesla

State-level incentives and special deals from sellers could help to keep some of that momentum going, but that can only go so far. BMW has promised to keep prices the same, with or without the federal tax credit, and we don’t know how the accounting team managed to work that out, but Beemer dealers are still leasing cars as if the $7,500 offer was still in place, so hats off to them. In any event, we don’t expect them to keep the deals going forever. Past a certain point, it doesn’t make sense to keep fulfilling a promise that the government made several years ago.

By and large, lease prices are skyrocketing since the EV credits went away. Teslas in particular are around $242 more expensive to lease, month to month, than they were a month ago, with the Model 3 Sedan in particular now costing $529 to lease, where it had been listed at just $349 before the credits expired. In other words: no wonder the brand saw a sales spike in the third quarter. Buyers could see the writing on the wall, and they wanted to get in while the getting was good.

Americans Can’t Get Enough Of The Model Y

Tesla

The Cybertruck might not be the electric-age Ford F-150 like it was intended to be, but the Model Y has turned out to be the EV answer to the Toyota Camry in more ways than not. An unshakable sales leader since 2022, the Model Y sold an estimated 114,897 units in the third quarter, a 29% bump from Q3 2024. This more or less tracks with what you would expect to see during a sales spike, based on end-of-year sales numbers over the last few years.

The Model Y alone seems to be strong enough to keep Tesla in business even if the brand were to shutter the rest of the lineup. Besides being the bestselling electric vehicle in the US, it’s also this year’s eighth-best-selling vehicle overall, as of the latest data, coming in right behind the Camry. This makes it the second-bestselling car, since the top seven spots are occupied by SUVs and pickups.

The Model Y Isn’t Going Anywhere

Tesla

It might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but the Model Y has proven to be the needle-mover. This is the car that proves the viability of the electric vehicle as a mainstream, mass-market product. That’s what Ford did for combustion-powered cars with the Model T, it’s what the Toyota Prius did for hybrids, and you only need to look at how those automakers benefited to see how hard it is to knock a segment leader off the throne.

(Almost) Everyone Had A Very Good Third Quarter

Chevrolet 

Checking the EV top-10 sellers list for Q3, Tesla claims a very strong lead, with Ford being the only other brand claiming more than a single spot on the list.

The Tesla Model Y and Model 3 alone sold more units than the eight next best-selling vehicles combined. The fact that the list tapers off to under 10,000 sales by 10th place is evidence enough that EVs are still a niche product, seeing as the Nissan Sentra was averaging 38,000 sales a quarter last year, and it barely made 25th place. But the Model Y and Model 3 are more than pulling their weight in keeping EV sales nice and healthy.

There Was A Sales Spike? The Cybertruck Didn’t Get The Memo

Tesla

With a glance at the latest numbers, one would conclude that a rising tide lifts all ships. But it’s telling that some vehicles are completely absent from this list. For instance, the Cybertruck actually had a rough Q3 despite the sales boom across the rest of the segment. Tesla’s futuristic pickup only sold 5,385 units, representing a 63% sales drop from the same sales period a year prior, when the brand managed to sell 14,000 of these vehicles.

The Cybertruck’s struggles owe to a number of factors. First of all, nobody wants to spend luxury car prices on a vehicle that’s known to fall apart in the car wash. Secondly, the truck’s actual capability as a work truck has proven to be incredibly limited, and there’s a reason you’ve probably never seen one of these things hauling lumber. But the number one reason the Cybertruck simply isn’t selling may have to do with the simple fact that the market has pretty much bottomed out.

Whether you love the Cybertruck or you hate it, it was always going to be a niche vehicle. That is, nobody’s out there weighing the pros and cons of a Cybertruck versus a Ford F-Series. You don’t buy a Cybertruck because it was the pickup that made sense on your budget, and for your needs; you buy it because you’re a true believer in Tesla’s future-forward mission statement, or because you want something unlike anything else on the road, or maybe just because you never got a chance to buy a DeLorean.

Whatever the reason, almost everyone who was ever going to buy a Cybertruck has already bought one, and one of the fastest ways to lose your investing dollar is to mistake an early-adopter boom for sustainable momentum.

The Segment’s Future Looks Bright (In The Long Run)

Given the elimination of EV credits and some infrastructure support in recent months, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the growth of the electric vehicle industry to stall a bit. But the battery-powered cat’s out of the bag. Bottom line, people who are happy with their switch to electric aren’t going back to ICE anytime soon.

Sources: Tesla, Cox Automotive.