Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.
The US electric vehicle market had a big increase in the 3rd quarter “thanks to” the US EV tax credit ending, but it wasn’t only electric vehicle sales that grew. Overall, the US auto industry as a whole had a strong quarter. In fact, it was the best 3rd quarter for the auto industry in several years. We’ll get into multi-year trends in a moment, but let’s start with the chart on sales by auto brand.
Note that there are embedded, interactive, Datawrapper versions of all of these charts and one more on the bottom of this article.
As you can see there, fully electric Tesla came in 8th, while Rivian ended in 30th and Lucid in 33rd.
Overall, US auto sales were 5% higher in Q3 2025 than Q3 2024, and they were 4% higher than in Q3 2023, while they were up 21% compared to Q3 2022 and Q3 2021.
As you can see, most brands had their sales go up, but Toyota stood out on volume increase, while Chrysler and Lucid did best looking at percentage increase. Subaru sales dropped off a cliff, while Mitsubishi and Mercedes didn’t do particularly well either.
Comparing to Q3 2023, Ford and Hyundai stand out for their growth on a volume basis, with Honda and Tesla following a bit behind in 3rd and 4th. On a percentage basis, little companies with big relative growth led the chart — Fiat, Jaguar Land Rover, and Lucid. Yes, Lucid! Tesla was actually down in 10th in that regard.
A couple of brands clearly not doing well were Dodge and Ram.
You can go back a bit further and look at the charts above. Going back 4 years to 2021, you can see Chevrolet, Ford, and Tesla have improved the most on a volume basis, while Chrysler, Cadillac, and Tesla improved the most on a percentage basis.
However … keep in mind that Tesla’s Q3 2025 results were very juiced due to the US EV tax credit expiring. Without a doubt, Q4 comparisons won’t look nearly as good for the brand, or for other EV companies unfortunately. Stay tuned for more on that.
But what about the overall auto market? Will it be up again in the 4th quarter, or will it also be a reversion?
Sign up for CleanTechnica’s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott’s in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy
