Rivian & Tesla Long-Term US Sales Charts — Not Uplifting …

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

The US electric car market is at an interesting point. We’ve looked at the market as a whole, the top selling brands and auto groups, and the long-term trends of 7 top electric models. However, in that latter piece, we left out the electric giant of the US auto world, Tesla, as well as aspiring giant Rivian — or perhaps we should call the club “David.” Let’s have a look at the long-term US sales trends of their models. (Note that there’s a static version of each sales chart and then an interactive version below it.)

Rivian’s electric delivery vehicles (EDV 500 and EDV 700) have had pretty solid consistent sales, thanks to Rivian’s great need for electric delivery vans. But they clearly peaked in the second half of 2024. Where do they go from a quite weak or modest 2025?

The Rivian R1T electric pickup truck is far down from its peak. Despite a bump in the third quarter, the model’s performance in 2025 does not look good. With so much competition on the large, quite expensive, premium-class EV market, it’s just hard to make a lot of sales. There’s a lot more choice than in 2022 and 2023, and not the pent-up demand or backlog of orders Rivian had back then. The R2/R3 can’t come soon enough….

The Rivian R1S SUV has held up much better than the R1T, showing that Rivian is competing more in the SUV market than the pickup truck market, but it also had a long slide from its peak in the 3rd quarter of 2023 until recently. Is the Q3 2025 bump going to propel the model forward for a while, or is it just a short blip and we will even see sales collapse for a while now after the bump? I’m afraid to say it, but the latter seems much more likely.

The R2/R3 can’t come soon enough….

The Tesla Model S is long past its golden era, but it’s actually a bit surprising how far the model has dropped in the past year. From a high point of about 50,000 sales a year, it is now down to about 5,000–6,000? (This is also one of the things that makes me wonder about the pros & cons of a Tesla model that is even much cheaper than a Model 3/Y — how much would that cannibalize Model 3/Y sales?)

The Model X has seen a somewhat similar story to the Model S, but has held up a bit better due to the popularity of SUVs over sedans, and maybe those falcon-wing doors? Still, just 12,000–15,000 sales a year? Not hot.

Now, the breakthrough electric model of the century. The Model 3 chart shows relative stability. Perhaps that looks fine. However, that has been brought about through growing incentives and bonuses from Tesla. It would still look fairly fine if not for one thing … the fact that the $7,500 US EV tax credit ended at the end of the 3rd quarter. While other EVs saw their sales absolutely spike in Q3, the Model 3’s sales were actually down year over year. What happens in the 4th quarter? I can’t understand anyone being optimistic about the Model 3 in the next couple of quarters. I expect a collapse. This could get nasty….

The Model Y provides a slightly more positive view, but not much more. The Model Y did spike to a new record quarter in the United States, but that was following a few weak quarters — and, again, considering the expiring US EV tax credit, this is actually not a very inspiring spike. I think one can only expect a similarly significant drop in sales in the 4th quarter of 2025 and the 1st quarter of 2026 … barring some kind of miracle.

For sure, the Model Y has been the most successful electric car in history and grew to an enormous, influential scale. It is one of the most popular cars in the USA. But how many units will be sold in the coming quarters now that Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump have stripped it of the US EV tax credit?

Oh, then there’s the Cybertruck….