California has reached a record of 22% market share for battery-electric vehicles (BEV) and over 40% if you account for PHEVs and HEVs.
Tesla has been responsible for much of California’s EV leadership, but the automaker is now down in the important EV market.
Battery-electric vehicles (BEV) are now hitting an all-time record of 22.2% market share in the state – more than twice the national BEV market share:
Tesla has been largely responsible for this growth up to 2023, but this stopped in 2024.
According to the CNCDA data, Tesla’s sales are down 12.6% year-to-date:
To be fair, overall car sales are down 1.7% in the state year-to-date, but Tesla’s sales are certainly down more than the average and BEV sales are still growing.
CNCDA commented on the situation:
This marks a full year of registration declines for Tesla in California, leaving the “alternative powertrain door” open for traditional automakers. Manufacturers and dealers have embraced this shift, expanding their share of battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales to 40.2 percent as consumers increasingly turn to exciting, new electric vehicle (EV) options.
Despite Tesla’s slowdown in sales, the automaker still has 4 vehicles in the top 10 best-selling EVs in the state, and the Model Y is undoubtedly in a league of its own:
| Rank | Model | Type | Regs. |
| 1 | Tesla Model Y | BEV | 105,693 |
| 2 | Tesla Model 3 | BEV | 37,219 |
| 3 | Hyundai Ioniq 5 | BEV | 11,711 |
| 4 | Ford Mustang Mach-E | BEV | 8,013 |
| 5 | Toyota RAV4 | PHEV | 7,805 |
| 6 | Tesla Model X | BEV | 7,312 |
| 7 | BMW i4 | BEV | 6,667 |
| 8 | Tesla Cybertruck | BEV | 6,349 |
| 9 | Rivian R1S | BEV | 6,279 |
| 10 | Jeep Wrangler | PHEV | 6,277 |
But at the end of the day, BEVs are still growing in the state despite Tesla’s sales going down and broader car sales also being down.
Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 and Ford’s Mustang Mach-E are picking up some of Tesla’s slack.
Tesla is not the only EV manufacturer having issues in California. We can see BEV sales from Chevy, Polestar, Porsche VW, and Volvo crashing:
However, Chevy’s crash was due to the transition away from the Bolt EV. Sales should start to pick up with new EVs launching through the brand.
GM is also seeing its GMC brand’s BEV sales surge.
In the luxury BEV segments, most are doing well, aside from Tesla, with Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus all seeing double-digit percentage increases.
Rivian is also doing well, with a 35% increase in deliveries in California.
But to be fair to Tesla, those increases are all on relatively low volumes of deliveries last year while Tesla delivered a record 182,000 electric vehicles in the state in 2023 – more than all other automakers combined.