Speaker 1: Three quarters of the way through 2022. And we know one thing about electric cars, they're not going away. The sales numbers have really started to ramp. Let's take a look at the horse race for who's ramping the most, and this is according to data from Kelly Blue Book and Cox Automotive to automotive data powerhouses.
Speaker 1: [00:00:30] The fifth best selling so far is the Chevy Bolt, EV or EUV electric utility vehicle. Almost the exact same car. I have a hard time telling them apart on the street. The body style's different but subtly either way. They are identical underpinnings, so I count them as a single model. But you'll note a little later in our story, if I did group another pair of cars, it would radically change our order, but we'll get to that in a minute. My main takeaway on the bolt is nice little car. I've enjoyed [00:01:00] driving it. Here's the question. If it didn't have all those unfortunate headlines where a General Motors said, park the thing outside so it doesn't burn your house down while we comp with a fix for its runaway battery, how many more might it have sold by now? It made it into number five. I bet it would be higher. Otherwise, note that the b e V platform, which is used in the bolt for its electric power, is not being used in other General Motors electric cars. They're all gonna be based on something called Altium. So in a [00:01:30] way, the bolt is sort of the end of the line for the older tech.
Speaker 1: Number four is gonna surprise many people. It's a Tesla, the Tesla model S way down here sort of on our short list. That's because the S does a whole lot of things that Americans don't like. It costs a fortune and it's a sedan still. It is a key part of why Tesla absolutely dominates luxury car sales.
Speaker 1: [00:02:00] Number three is the Mustang mock E. Now, while its sales are a fraction of the other two cars we're about to get to, it sells enough that it is largely the first indicator that Tesla is gonna have to share the market in a substantial way with other brands. The Maee really opened the doors for others as well. It's for itself. It's also notable that the mock E has increased its sales 49% over the same period in 2021. And that's [00:02:30] during a time of some pretty difficult market conditions and supply chain issues. And Ford boss Jim Farley is super bullish on the future. In fact, his predictions of EV sales in general in the US run about two x what just about every other analyst thinks he knows something and the mock kind of proves it. That's also why Ford is building a massive EV centric new factory in rural Tennessee that's gonna dwarf its legendary factory on the rouge in Detroit. [00:03:00] Number two is the Tesla model three. That's gonna surprise some people because they hear so much about Tesla model three. Those two go together as watershed descriptions of the most popular electric car that they think What could outs sell this? I'll tell you in a minute, the model three is selling nearly twice as many cars so far this year as it did the same period last year, and that was nothing to sneeze at either.
Speaker 1: Now, before I show you the number one selling [00:03:30] electric car so far in 2022, let me share with you some interesting side stories that I'm watching.
Speaker 1: The Hyundai Ionic five and the Kia EV six both missed the cut on my list, not by a lot, but if they were combined into one like the Chevy Bolt is, they would bump the mock E off to become the number one selling electric car. That's not called a Tesla. Now, I'm not saying you can combine the Ionic five in the EV six, they are different enough, but their underlying EV [00:04:00] platform is basically the same. They're cousins within the same company, Hyundai Motor Group, and they are an interesting indication that maybe Hyundai has the very best finger on the pulse of the American EV market after Tesla of any other company.
Speaker 1: Then there are the Volvo stories starting with the Pole Star two. This is the Subbrand of Volvo and the Pole Star two has been on an absolute sales growth tear, 500% growth so far this year [00:04:30] compared to last on a fairly small base I'll grant you, which puts it in stark contrast to its stable mate, the Volvo XC 40 recharge, which has had a major sales drop compared to the same period in 2021. Not so much a problem with the car, but because they've had an issue making enough of them and supplying demand. And it's an interesting story of how some car makers have been able to play the current conditions well, Ford, for example, and others not Volvo in this case. It also is gonna be a [00:05:00] specter over Volvo XC 40 s future in that it's made in Belgium and that's going to very likely rule it out from any qualification for the new federal tax credits that require your car be made in North America.
Speaker 1: And finally, I've got a Toyota story before we get to number one, and that is they're hybrids, plugin, and conventional. You know, I think both those kinds of cars are kind of overlooked and underappreciated in this mania around pure battery electrics. If the best selling hybrid in the [00:05:30] us, the RAV4 hybrid and the RAV4 Prime plugin hybrid were slotted on my list today, they would be a strong number three nipping at the heels of the Tesla model three. And also note, the RAV4 has completely blown away the Prius as the most popular hybrid in America. I'm not sure a lot of folks realize that there's so much hype and sort of iconography around the Prius that we all think, oh, that's the best selling hybrid hasn't been for a while. The RAV4 has cleaned up. That's [00:06:00] all in the same family. I doubt Toyota's worrying about it. Oh, by the way, have you seen the NU prs that may even the score a little. The number one selling electric car in the US so far in 2022 is the Tesla model Y. It's almost the same car as the model three, but it's a compact utility with a flat floor and a big hatch. The kind of car 80% of Americans are looking for
Speaker 1: [00:06:30] The model Y slides in there and says, I'm the kind of car you want with the kind of propulsion that so many of you want. And there in it takes our number one crown. By the way, if you're wondering about what's coming next in 2023 in terms of models that might infiltrate this list, see my recent video on exactly that, the electric cars I'm most looking forward to in the next year.
