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InsideEVs

Technology

US: Some Promising BEV Brands Are Struggling This Year

Rivian United States Kia Porsche Tesla Inc. Cadillac Experian Ford GMC Nissan

During the first four months of this year, new all-electric car registrations in the United States increased by 72 percent year-over-year to almost 350,000.

However, a new Automotive News report, based on data from Experian, indicates that while some brands are enjoying strong sales growth, others are struggling.

For example, Tesla increased its volume by 52 percent year-over-year to almost 212,000 (60.8 percent of the total volume). The other 24 brands noted 136,416 (up 116 percent year-over-year).

According to Automotive News, the list of promising brands with relatively weak numbers includes Cadillac, GMC, Kia, Lucid, Nissan, Porsche, and Rivian. Their results were considered lower than anticipated and, in some cases, lower than a year ago.

There are various reasons behind that - some manufacturers noted parts supply constraints, and others were affected by a lack of eligibility for the $7,500 federal tax credit. There are also more general issues like interest rates, inflation, and economic concerns.

For example, Kia noted a 27 percent decrease in new BEV registrations during the January-April period. Both the Kia EV6 and Kia Niro EV are imported from South Korea.

The Nissan Leaf, once a top-selling electric model, is down 48 percent year-over-year, while the all-new Nissan Ariya noted 2,650 units.

Cadillac Lyriq registrations amounted to 1,383. The article says that the brand "is ramping up the Lyriq slowly to guarantee quality."

Porsche, with 2,114 Taycan registrations (all types), is down 25 percent year-over-year. Here, the issue appears to be supply constraints.

Automotive News reports that in the case of the Lucid (2,298 units), there might be a demand issue "weakening demand because of a lack of market awareness." Nonetheless, the start-up sold more Lucid Air than Porsche Taycan, which are more or less in a similar six-digit price range.

GMC is an interesting example - just 28 units sold - but we know that there was a manufacturing pause. Mini (862), Lexus (394), VinFast (86), Jaguar (81) and Mazda (37) were other brands below 1,000 BEVs sold.

The Rivian brand, mentioned first in the article (9,302), noted an average of over 2,300 units a month. There were some ramp-up issues along the way, and increasing production of the R1T and R1S remains the main focus of the company. However, we don't know whether we can agree that the brand is struggling - at least not in the same ways as most of the other mentioned brands because Rivian is increasing volume.

"Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said in May that the production ramp of R1 vehicles from the automaker's Normal, Ill., factory is accelerating to meet its order backlog. Rivian has struggled with manufacturing issues since launching the plant in 2021 amid supply chain issues caused, in part, by the pandemic."

Below, we attached an updated list of brands and models, for which the registration numbers are available.

BEV registrations (select brands) - January-April 2023: