Cox Automotive estimates that battery-electric vehicles accounted for 5.8% of US new-vehicle sales in Q1 2026, with 216,399 sales, down 27% year-on-year (Cox Automotive Q1 report). Cox's Q2 figures, independently reported by The Drive, put share at 5.4% and new-EV volume near 244,000, down about 22%. These are Cox market estimates, not a federal registration series, because the United States has no single official monthly registration body equivalent to the KBA or SMMT.
The sales numbers, not just the share
Share understates the drop. Actual EV sales fell about 27% year-on-year in Q1 and roughly 22% in Q2, when the industry sold around 244,000 new EVs, down from a year earlier. The United States is the only major market Autonergy tracks where electric volume is falling in absolute terms. Everywhere else, share is rising even where the overall market is soft. In America, both the EV share and the EV count went down.
One policy change explains most of it
The 7,500 dollar federal EV tax credit ended in late 2025. For a market where the incentive did the heavy lifting on affordability, its removal reset demand almost overnight. Without the credit, the price gap between an electric model and its combustion or hybrid equivalent widened back out, and price-sensitive buyers walked.
Where the buyers went: hybrids
They did not go back to straight petrol. They went to hybrids. Toyota, the global hybrid leader, grew its US sales in the second quarter while pure-electric-dependent makers shrank. The American consumer response to losing the EV subsidy was to buy the electrified car that still pencils out without one. That is why Honda and Ford have both publicly pivoted electrification spending toward hybrid technology in 2026.
The one bright spot: used EVs and Tesla
Two things ran against the trend. Used EV sales set a record, with around 128,000 secondhand electric cars sold in Q2, up 29% year-on-year, as depreciation made used electric genuinely cheap. And Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in Q2, up 25%, even as the broader US EV market fell 22%. The new mass-market EV buyer paused. The bargain-hunter and the brand loyalist did not. Open the live USA dashboard for the EV share trend and the Cox Automotive sales estimates.