EV Sales Surge, Automakers Rise

Last year was a landmark year for transportation electrification in the United States, and sales data from December 2022 sealed the deal with a record-breaking month. Here are some insights from the data, sourced from the Automakers Dashboard.

First and foremost, we capped off the year with the most EVs sold for any single month with a colossal 113,000 units sold, a 55 percent increase from December 2021 (72,000 sales). Of that number, nearly 93,000 of those vehicles were battery-electric vehicles (83 percent). To put that into further perspective, in December 2022, EVs accounted for 10 percent of the light-duty market share – the highest to date and the first time market share moved into double figures.

Tesla continues to lead the pack with approximately 58,000 units sold and a 51 percent EV market share in December 2022. See the graph below for Tesla’s market share trend versus other automakers (by quarter) as 2022 rounded out. Additionally, Tesla is taking steps to ensure EV inclusivity by opening up part of its Supercharger network to non-Tesla EV drivers, per an agreement with company CEO Elon Musk and the Biden Administration announced in mid-February.

December’s data tells us that several automakers are gaining positive momentum in the market with company sales records, including Ford. Ford once again came second to Tesla in sales as the Mach-E remains the company’s most popular model, capping nearly 4,000 sales during the month of December. The F-150 Lightning came a close second with nearly 3,000 sales, despite a recent development of the company is pausing production of the model as a result of battery recalls. However, Ford officials recently stated that production will restart on March 13th and that the company is on track to triple F-150 Lightning production this year.

Another noteworthy story in the data is Rivian. In December 2022, the company reported just over 3,000 sales – led by the R1T model. This is a massive jump from December 2021 when the company reported just under 400 sales. According to reporting from Electrek, Rivian ramped up its production over the course of the year with approximately 24,000 vehicles produced, a significant increase from the previous year. At the end of February, the company received another boost as the R1T was ranked highest in driver satisfaction in a survey of EVs by J.D. Power.

Lastly, Stellantis sales have been up and down throughout the year, but the company enjoyed a successful end of year with a record-breaking 7,000 EV sales across all models in December 2022, a 74 percent increase from the previous year. The Wrangler 4xe and Grand Cherokee Plug In represented most of that stock, followed by the Chrysler Pacifica (all plug-in hybrid EVs). The company is riding off its end-of-year successes and will invest $155 million in Indiana EV factories. Specifically, Stellantis will produce electric drive modules in three Kokomo, Indiana plants and retain more than 265 more EV jobs.

Other automakers have topped their monthly sales records, including Volkswagen and BMW. Visit our Automakers Dashboard to learn more.