By Gary S. Vasilash

One of the things that isn’t talked about much is the fact that electric vehicles really aren’t that popular unless they come from Tesla.

Flying in the face of that is a finding of Kelley Blue Book that in Q3 2023 EV sales in the U.S. hit 313,086 units, a 49.8% increase over Q3 2022. Such a jump means interest, right?

Well, the total number of EVs sold in Q3 represents 7.9% of total industry sales.

In other words, 92.1% of the vehicles people bought in Q3 weren’t electric.

And to the point of Tesla’s sway over the market—even though KBB saysTesla’s share of market tumbled to 50%–is that KBB acknowledges“Tesla’s price cuts have moved the market, pushing electric vehicle prices down more than 22% year over year, from $65,295.”

That’s right: a single company moves the entire segment.

(And in case you’re wondering, in October, according to KBB, the average transaction price for an EV was $51,762 while the ATP for a non-lux vehicle was $44,331.)

Drilling down a bit more, it is bracing to discover that in terms of share of the EV segment, the mainstream brands really don’t have much in Q3.

• Chevrolet, 5.1%
• Ford, 6.7%
• GMC, 0.4%
• Hyundai, 6.3%
• Kia, 3%
• Nissan, 1.9%
• Subaru, 0.9%
• Toyota, 0.9%
• VW, 3.4%

And know that the 6.7% for Q3 Ford racked up represents 20,926 vehicles: 14,842 Mach-Es, 3,503 F-150 Lightnings and 2,617 E-Transits.

Ford sold 23,931 Mavericks in Q3, of which 56.5% were hybrids. Somehow that 20,926 EVs sold—encompassing three models, one of which is based on the best-selling pickup Since Time Began—seems more than anemic.

So even before Ford started talking about having to make adjustments as a result of the salary and benefit increases in the proposed agreement with the UAW, the auto company suddenly found things like the F-150 Hybrid more interesting.

When I ask knowledgeable people about the subject, they point out that much of the EV development and promotion is predicated on government regulations, more than organic customer demand. Look at those puny percentages up there, slices of the 313,086 vehicles sold by companies ranging from Audi to Volkswagen.

There’s not much there there.

Yes, there will be more EVs offered. More EVs sold.

But—again, absent Tesla—the market demand isn’t at all what it sounds like it should be.

Another example of this not-big demand is something that some point to as a real success story: the Chevrolet Bolt EV.

Here are the sales figures for the past five years:

• 2018: 18,019
• 2019: 16,418
• 2020: 20,754
• 2021: 24,828
• 2022: 38,120

Whoa! you might think. From 2018 to 2022 the sales of the Bolt EV doubled! Remarkable.

But there are a couple of elements that need to be considered.

For one thing, Chevy added a (slightly) different body style, the more ute-like Bolt EUV in 2021, which certainly added some interest to the model(s).

And in June 2022 General Motors cut the price of the Bolt to persuade customers to buy one—sort of like what Elon has been doing.

Had Dodge made a substantial price reduction to the SRT Hellcat Redeye Widebody, the Brotherhood of Muscle would exponentially increase its membership of all genders and municipalities throughout the country would have a sharp uptick in revenues from speeding tickets.

If there is a change in the political situation, those regulations that are driving EV development and sales and those incentives that do the same (what if the government offered $7,500 tax credits for the purchase of a Hellcat?), the question of actual market demand is really going to matter.