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I think everyone expected a very bad 4th quarter for electric vehicles in the United States. With the $7,500 US EV tax credit expiring on the last day of the 3rd quarter, people flocked to dealers and websites to buy electric cars before October 1 arrived. People who might have otherwise bought in October or November or December did so in September (or earlier). Therefore, sales in the 4th quarter were going to stink.
Kia is one of the automakers that still publishes monthly delivery numbers in the United States, and it’s latest sales report shows that EVs were still bring hit hard in the last month of the year. Despite having a slightly better December 2025 than December 2024 overall, its EV sales dropped by more than 50%.
- The Kia EV6 went from 2,111 deliveries in December 2024 to 745 deliveries in December 2025.
- The Kia EV9 went from 1,951 deliveries in December 2024 to 1,019 deliveries in December 2025.
My hope, and slight expectation, is that the post-subsidy sales drop may be fading out now. Going 4 months past the end of the subsidy, one would think we start getting more into fresh market territory. That said, perhaps it will take longer in this case, and there’s also a question of how much the subsidy consistently helped EV sales in the USA and how much lack of the incentive will dampen EV demand.
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