The latest figures show Tesla is outselling the competition in California, including cars with internal combustion engines (ICE), and the competition isn’t even close. The Model Y and Model 3 were the top selling cars in the state through the first six months of the year. The strong performance by the duo of electric vehicles (EVs) also helped pushed EV market share to a new high.
According to data from the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA) published on Tuesday, the Model Y led all vehicle sales through June with a total of 74,765 registrations. This not only made it the most popular EV, but also the top selling light truck, according to CNCDA’s classifications. Considering that same category, the next closest vehicle wasn’t close at all, with the Toyota RAV4 accumulating just 26,032 registrations during the same time period. Rounding out the top five vehicles in that category were the Ford F-Series (21,288), Toyota Tacoma (19,186), and Chevrolet Silverado (18,731).
Outside of the light truck classification, the Model 3 was the second most popular vehicle overall, with 41,718 registrations from January to June, placing it at the top of the passenger car category. Much like it’s bigger sibling, the Model 3 dominated that category, outselling the Toyota Camry (27,169), Honda Accord (20,934), Honda Civic (20,358), and Toyota Corolla (16,539).
Add it all up, and Tesla was unsurprisingly the best selling brand in California in the first six months of the year, with 69,212 registrations compared to second place Toyota with 67,482 registrations.
In terms of market share, the Model Y holds an 11.9% market share in its category, while the Model 3 has an even more impressive 14.9% market share in the passenger car segment. That helped push the overall battery electric vehicle (BEV) market share in California to 21.1% through June, ahead of the 16.4% market share recorded for 2022. The 191,041 BEV registrations through June is already nearly 30,000 units higher than all of the BEVs sold in California in 2021 (161,860), and if the pace continues in the second half of the year, it should easily surpass and break the record set in 2022 of 260,233 reigstrations.
With those figures, Tesla wasn’t the only EV brand that has performed well in California so far in 2023. Rivian’s electric SUV, the R1S, accumulated 1,807 registrations, just 502 behind the first place Mercedes Benz EQS SUV (2,309) in the luxury large SUV category. The R1T added just 418 units, giving Rivian a total of 2,226 registrations through June, a 156% increase compared to the same time period last year.
