How Do Inventory and Pricing Look for the EV Market?
Seen any news coverage of the electric-vehicle market recently? The headlines are fairly dire, with each citing production pullback from automakers like Ford and GM, allegedly due to demand. That got us wondering: What is the EV market really like at the end of 2023? To that end, we trawled Cars.com’s rich reserve of data to find out current trends in both the new- and used-car market to come up with a snapshot. Here’s what we learned.
Related: Here Are the 11 Cheapest Electric Vehicles You Can Buy
Let’s Talk New Cars
First, some big figures: We found new EV inventory on Cars.com is up 316% year over year, with comparable EV demand down 8.2% — scary, but consider that ongoing economic turbulence and high inflation saw the overall demand for new cars of all types fall nearly 10%. And with this demand dip comes increased supply, with November 2023 showing a 48% increase in new car supply compared with the same time a year prior.
Tesla remains the unassailable sales behemoth in the EV market. The popular American automaker accounted for 50% of EV sales in 2023, down from 64% market share last year. Without accounting for companies that offer direct-to-consumer sales like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid, all-electric inventory is up 245% year over year, with an 8.4% drop in new-car searches on Cars.com. The number of days live on site (i.e., available for sale) is up 141% year over year. For comparison, in the same time frame, inventory of new gas-powered cars (including plug-in and standard hybrids) is up 43%, with a 39% increase in days available for sale.
Price appears to be the biggest contributing factor in the slow growth of the non-Tesla EV segment, especially as 46% of consumers seek new cars under $30,000, a segment slice comprising just 12% of available new inventory. Compare this with the average list price of a new EV of $63,725 against a new non-electric car’s $48,431 average.
There simply aren’t many EV options for under $30,000; from November 2022, inventory of new EVs less than $30,000 has averaged 1,089 units, or just 3.9% of the greater EV inventory that averaged 58,225 units over the same timeframe. In larger numbers, inventory of new EVs under $30,000 averaged just 0.07% of all new car inventory.
Demand for Used EVs Is (Comparably) Strong
The theme of the elevated prices for EVs not correlating with demand continues when you take a snapshot of the used market. Searches on Cars.com for used EVs rose nearly 57% year over year against the 39% rise in searches for new and used EVs combined. It starts to make sense when you consider the average list price of a used EV dropped nearly 24% over the same period.
Even so, the average list price of a used EV is still $41,032 against a $29,660 average list price for the inventory of all used gas-powered cars. The margin narrows down to roughly 9% when you look at the percentage difference of the average list value of both new and used inventory, as the value for gas cars beats that of EVs at a 48% difference to electric’s 43% spread.
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What’s Popular?
Ford takes the lead in views — which translates to demand — when it comes to new EVs on Cars.com. The Ford F-150 Lightning tops the charts, followed by the Mustang Mach-E, each carrying weighted average list prices of $70,417 and $56,984, respectively. A portfolio of GM’s electrified efforts follows behind, with the GMC Hummer EV Pickup and Cadillac Lyriq bringing up the next two slots.
Unsurprisingly, Tesla absolutely commands the used EV space. Model S, 3, X, and Y (we didn’t plan that) take up the top four spots in that order, with the Porsche Taycan and Mustang Mach-E trailing behind.
Takeaways
So, there’s some truth to those doom ‘n’ gloom headlines — demand for EVs is down, but not quite as much as demand for new cars overall. And thanks to inflation, dropping gas prices and surging inventory, it doesn’t look like the market will shift radically enough to meaningfully offset automakers’ continued production ramp-up of EVs over the next year.
Framed like this, it’s not surprising to see some automakers pare down planned trims as they assess the market, but we’d still be surprised if any major electric product rollout was outright canceled due to market softening — yet.
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