10 Biggest News Stories of the Year: Tesla Model Y Leads the Charge in an Electrifying Year in Cars
If the past year in automotive-industry news has taught us anything, it’s that car shoppers are overwhelmingly interested in two things: vehicles that are environmentally friendly and ones that are budget friendly. And should those two criteria meet in the middle of the Venn diagram, all the better.
Related: What to Know Before Purchasing an Electric Vehicle: A Buying Guide
In our annual roundup of the most popular Cars.com news articles of the past year, those concerned specifically with electric vehicles dominate, plugging into six of 10 available outlets on the 2022 content countdown. Lest we get too charged up about all the EV excitement, bear in mind that fully electric vehicles still represented just over 5% of new-car registrations at most recent count, according to InsideEVs. However, that figure was nearly doubled compared with the year before, at the same time the share of the EV market not dominated by Tesla surged.
It’s safe to say that, at the very least, Americans are EV curious and exploring. Cars.com was only too happy to indulge that curiosity, offering up articles on how much it costs to charge an EV as well as to install a home charger (Nos. 1 and 2 on the countdown below); the most affordable EVs available (No. 4); cars still eligible for the sales-volume-limited $7,500 federal tax credit for EV purchases (No. 5); and EVs offering the longest driving range, and therefore the least range anxiety, on a single charge (No. 10).
If you’re among the EV curious, be certain to read all about our experience with the 2022 Tesla Model Y — the projected bestselling electric car of the year — as part of Cars.com’s fleet of long-term test cars. Every year, Cars.com puts its money where its mouth is and buys one or more of the vehicles it honors with its annual Best Of awards; the Model Y took the title of Best Electric Vehicle of 2022, so we procured one to drive for a year and report on the real-world ownership experience. You can start by reading the No. 8 news story of the year, from back in February, when we announced the Model Y had earned our top EV honor for the year; there, you’ll learn why it won, the criteria for selection, and how it beat out formidable foes like the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the Volvo XC40 Recharge Twin.
The balance of the year-end countdown is concerned with saving money on car purchases. And how could it be otherwise? For roughly the past two years — coinciding with and largely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — an industry-wide shortage of microchips needed to power modern vehicles’ multitude of automated functions has resulted in massive manufacturing disruptions. A dearth of both new and used cars on dealer lots has, in turn, inflated prices across the board as the law of supply and demand does its thing. There does seem to be light at the tunnel, however, as the chip shortage shows signs of abating with prices likely to follow.
In the meantime, you can reflect on how the inventory shortage was impacting used-car prices and our car-buying advice by following the links below to the No. 6 and No. 7 news articles of 2022. And, since we’re not out of the woods just yet, also be sure to peruse our roundups of the cheapest new cars and SUVs at Nos. 3 and 9.
With that, we wish all you car shoppers and automotive news consumers a happy, healthy, efficient and affordable new year — and, as always, don’t stop reading till the digits double. Here are the top 10 news stories Cars.com readers couldn’t get enough of in the past year:
1. How Much Does It Cost to Charge an Electric Car?
2. What It Cost to Outfit 6 Homes With EV Chargers
3. Here Are the 10 Cheapest New Cars You Can Buy Right Now
4. Here Are the 11 Cheapest Electric Vehicles You Can Buy
5. Which Electric Cars Are Still Eligible for the $7,500 Federal Tax Credit?
6. When Will Used-Car Prices Drop? 3 Things Car Shoppers Should Know
7. Inventory Shortage Update: Should You Wait to Buy a Car?
8. Best Electric Vehicle of 2022
9. Here Are the 10 Cheapest New SUVs You Can Buy Right Now
10. Electric Cars With the Longest Range
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