- Electric vehicle (EV) sales increased in the second quarter, but remain well below last year’s level.
- Hybrid sales continued to soar as more automakers introduce models available only as hybrids.
Hybrid sales are soaring in the U.S. Electric car sales, meanwhile, continue a slow climb from a deep valley.
Americans bought 2.2% fewer new cars in the first half of 2026, but 9% more hybrids, according to Kelley Blue Book data.
Higher gas prices likely played some role in the surge. But so did automaker decisions. Some top sellers, like Toyota’s RAV4 SUV and Camry sedan, and Jeep’s reborn Cherokee SUV, are available only as hybrids in the 2026 model year.
EV sales continue a very slow recovery from a chaotic 2025. In late 2025, the federal government ended a $7,500 tax incentive that helped Americans buy electric cars. That caused a brief sales surge as Americans raced to claim the tax credit while they still could, then a dive as the incentive disappeared.
Automakers face a diverging market as EV sales climb overseas. The International Energy Agency estimates that at least one in four new cars sold globally is now electric. In the U.S., the figure remains dramatically lower.
Americans bought 14.7% more EVs in the second quarter of 2026 than in the first. That remains a small proportion of the total market.
Just 5.8% of all new cars sold in the U.S. last quarter were electric. EV sales fell 20.5% from the same period in 2025. But in the first quarter, they saw a 27.3% year-over-year drop. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the drop-off was 36%. So a slow recovery seems to be underway.
The Top 10
The Tesla Model Y remains America’s favorite EV by a considerable distance – more than one of every three electric cars sold last quarter was a Model Y. Its Model 3 stablemate suffered a 28.4% sales drop year-over-year, but Model Y sales fell just 1.5%.
| Rank | Model | Q2 2026 Sales |
| 1 | Tesla Model Y | 84,863 |
| 2 | Tesla Model 3 | 34,944 |
| 3 | Hyundai Ioniq 5 | 10,940 |
| 4 | Toyota bZ | 7,524 |
| 5 | Ford Mustang Mach-E | 7,032 |
| 6 | Chevrolet Equinox EV | 6,660 |
| 7 | Rivian R1S | 6,183 |
| 8 | Honda Prologue | 5,088 |
| 9 | Cadillac Optiq | 4,236 |
| 10 | Cadillac Lyriq | 4,208 |
