13 Auto Manufacturers Noticed Growing EV Gross sales in California in 1st Half of 2025

Final Up to date on: ninth August 2025, 04:33 am

The California EV market is the most important within the US by far. In truth, standing alone, it’s one of many largest EV markets on the earth. I’ve coated the highest promoting EV fashions within the state this yr, the EV fashions doing effectively of their automobile courses, and the highest promoting auto manufacturers for EV gross sales within the 2nd quarter of 2025. To wrap up this sequence, let’s have a look at the highest promoting auto manufacturers for EV gross sales within the first half of the yr total.

There’s a little bit of overlap with that final article, however there are additionally variations. If it was all principally the identical story, I’d have simply mixed the tales.

General, throughout the primary half of the yr, Tesla is down one place, from second place in 2024 to 3rd place in 2025. The all-electric model is kind of far off of #2 Honda, however it additionally nonetheless has a good lead over #4 Ford. Can Tesla maintain onto third place by the tip of the yr, and even climb again into 2nd? Or will it slip additional as gross sales proceed to drop within the Golden State? We’ll by no means know. Oh, wait, sure — we’ll know in 6 months. Drop your prediction down within the feedback!

Wanting simply at ZEV gross sales, effectively, regardless of how a lot Tesla drops, it’s acquired such a large lead over the remainder of the pack that it’s arduous to even discover a drop. There’s no probability another automaker is getting near the (initially) California model this yr or subsequent. Let’s simply see if another model can get to 10,000+ ZEV gross sales 1 / 4 within the coming quarters/years.

Excluding Tesla from the chart in order that it’s simpler to match the others, we see a good race for silver and bronze on the high, with BMW presently taking the silver and Hyundai presently taking the bronze, however Chevrolet proper behind them. That’s completely different from the final quarterly report, the place Hyundai is in 2nd, BMW is in third, and Chevrolet is in 4th — however it’s even tighter. Ford is attempting to climb as much as the extent of these three, however no different model has an opportunity of competing for the rostrum.

Taking a look at how issues have modified from H1 2024 to H1 2025, we see the large drop-off from Tesla, with the corporate dropping nearly 20,000 gross sales (or 20% of gross sales) yr over yr. The model could also be years value of gross sales forward of the competitors, however that stings.

Excluding Tesla in order that we are able to see the remainder of the chart higher, we’ve got a ton of variation. 13 manufacturers scored gross sales rises, some large ones. Nonetheless, one other 12 had gross sales losses, some large ones. (Word: I excluded these backside three manufacturers from these tallies since their numbers are within the single digits.)

Chevrolet, Honda, and Acura had enormous rises because of new, fashionable fashions. Nissan, Porsche, GMC, BMW, and Volvo additionally had large gross sales will increase.

Alternatively, Kia misplaced a ton of gross sales, and Mercedes, Rivian, Audi, Volkswagen, Lexus, and Hyundai had notable and disappointing gross sales losses.

Clearly, there are altering preferences for EVs within the Golden State. It could be good if all EV mannequin gross sales had been rising, some simply greater than others. However the actuality is that some fashions and types are struggling whereas others are rising their buyer bases considerably. Survival of the fittest. Who do you suppose can have a powerful second half of the yr?

For additional enjoyable, view interactive variations of three of the above charts right here: