Model Y

Make
Tesla
Segment
SUV

With so many electric cars on the market lately, buyers have plenty of choice. Ford is bringing more commercial EVs to market, Audi has begun its own electric revolution, and even Maserati is replacing the Gran Turismo with an electric model. But with so much choice and far less infrastructure, are these cars even selling, or are we just preparing for the day when fossil fuels are simply not an option? Well, according to a new report from Automotive News, there are buyers for EVs, and there are a lot of them. This report says that overall vehicle registrations rose by 36 percent in the first four months of this year, so there are many more new car sales happening, but can you guess how many of these were electric?

Of all new vehicles registered, EVs formerly accounted for 1.6 percent of sales in the US, but from January to April 2021, electric cars accounted for 2.3 percent, and that's despite the aforementioned increase in overall vehicle sales.

What makes this all the more interesting is that it's happening at a time when people have come out of 2020 lockdowns and have had a lot more time to think about what new car to buy. The first third of 2020 was particularly bad for the auto industry, so the increase in overall sales is not a surprise nor the norm, but the fact that EVs are capturing the attention of buyers is still noteworthy. As you'd expect, California bought the most EVs with 38 percent of the share, but this is a drop from the Golden State's previous figures of 45 percent.

Tesla is again the real winner with 71 percent of the electric car market in this period. The automaker's share of the market has increased slightly, which is being attributed to the popularity of the Model Y. 53,102 of all the EVs registered in the January to April period were Model Y vehicles. In second place was the Model 3, with Chevrolet's Bolt EV clinching the final podium spot. The rest of the top ten includes the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Kona, and Porsche Taycan, but the Model X and Model S round out the top ten. This top ten list makes up 95 percent of new EVs sold, with 7,323 other, obscure offerings making up the balance. It'll be interesting to see how the F-150 Lightning affects these figures come 2022.