New electric vehicle registrations nearly doubled to 756,534 units (up 57% YoY) in the United States in 2022. Of that record, battery electric vehicles accounted for a 5.6% share, a notable increase from just 3.1% a year ago.
It is interesting to note that the EV market saw a significant registrations growth amid the decline in the overall market by 11% to 13.6 million units, per Experian data.
Tesla dominated the US EV market in 2022
Unsurprisingly, American EV giant Tesla led the EV market with a whopping 64% market share. The automaker reported sales of 484,351 units in new registrations, which indicates a YoY growth of 41%.
Per the report citing Experian data, the Tesla Model Y was the bestselling model with a YoY sales growth of 35% to 228,312 new registrations in 2022.
Furthermore, last year’s top bestselling EVs featured the following four Tesla EVs: Model Y, Model 3, Model S, and Model X. Tesla’s closest American rival Ford was able to advance its Mustang Mach-E in the third spot perfectly in between the Tesla EVs.
“Tesla has a tremendous first-mover advantage as it was the first brand to offer truly aspirational EVs to the early adopters.
Certainly, with so many competitors coming into the marketplace, Tesla’s market share will recede, as it’s mathematically impossible for its share to remain steady or grow with all the new EV nameplates arriving. But we do expect Tesla’s sales leadership to remain.”
Ed Kim, AutoPacific’s president and chief analyst
The analyst’s prediction makes perfect sense, given that Tesla’s EV market share in the US saw a 64% decline in 2022 from 71% a year ago after rival automakers debuted new EV models that swayed customers, including the Ford F-150 Lightning, Kia EV6, Cadillac Lyriq and more.
Other automakers struggled to beat Tesla in 2022
As mentioned, Tesla led the US EV market last year with a market share of 64%. Another American automaker Ford followed the market leader, almost doubling its new car registrations record from 2021 to 56,464 units, with a 7.5% market share.
Chevrolet ranked third with new car registrations of 36,245 units (up 41% YoY), representing 4.8% of the US EV market. Hyundai Motor Group EV brands got in the top five, with Kia representing 3.8% of the market. Meanwhile, Hyundai had a 3.5% market share.
Beyond the top five, the traditional premium brand Audi reported a market share of 2.1% in 2022.
Top five brands in terms of market share:
| Ranking | Model | New Registrations & Changes YoY | Market Share |
| 1 | Tesla | 484,351, up 41% | 64% |
| 2 | Ford | 56,464, up 2x | 7.5% |
| 3 | Chevrolet | 36,245, up 41% | 4.8% |
| 4 | Kia | 28,506, up 3x | 3.8% |
| 5 | Hyundai | 26,825, up 142% | 3.5% |
As shown in the table above, legacy automakers saw a double- or triple-fold increase in EV registrations in 2022. And yet, they hardly made any impact on Tesla’s massive advantage with 64% of the market.
