US EV Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-authors: Aidan Jad (EV & Energy) | Last updated: September 11, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Americans bought 660,373 plug-in vehicles in the first seven months of 2026, 28.3% fewer than a year earlier, according to Axis Intelligence Research analysis of Argonne National Laboratory’s monthly sales series. Over the same seven months hybrid sales rose by 240,165 units. For every plug-in sale the US market lost, it gained 0.92 hybrid sales.
Quick Answer
Plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) sales in the United States totalled 660,373 units from January through July 2026, down 28.3% year over year, and held 7.12% of light-duty sales against 9.70% in the same period of 2025 (Argonne National Laboratory). Conventional hybrids went the other way: 1,428,909 units, up 20.2%. Total electrified share — plug-ins plus hybrids — was essentially unchanged at 22.52%.
Key Findings
- Axis Intelligence Research’s Hybrid Substitution Index (HSI) reached 2.16 for January–July 2026, up from 1.29 a year earlier, meaning US buyers took 2.16 conventional hybrids for every plug-in vehicle they bought.
- The US light-duty market lost 261,163 plug-in sales and gained 240,165 hybrid sales in January–July 2026 versus the same period of 2025 — a replacement ratio of 0.92 hybrids per lost plug-in, Axis Intelligence Research calculates from Argonne National Laboratory data.
- Total electrified share of US light-duty sales held at 22.52% in January–July 2026 against 22.21% a year earlier, so the electrified market did not shrink — it moved off the plug, according to Axis Intelligence Research.
- Plug-in hybrids fell 42.5% year over year in January–July 2026 while battery-electric vehicles fell 24.8%, making the PHEV the single worst-performing powertrain in the post-credit US market, per Axis Intelligence Research analysis of Argonne data.
- Five states hold 49.9% of all 255,779 US public and private charging ports as of September 10, 2026 — California alone holds 26.1% — Axis Intelligence Research finds from Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center counts.
How Many EVs Were Sold in the US in 2026?
Argonne National Laboratory compiles US light-duty sales by powertrain every month and reports them to the Department of Energy. Its series through July 2026 is the closest thing the country has to an official plug-in sales record, and it shows a market that has reset to a lower level rather than collapsed.
In July 2026, 93,212 plug-in vehicles were sold — 73,443 battery-electric and 19,769 plug-in hybrid — down 37.6% from July 2025, at 6.83% of light-duty sales. Year to date, 660,373 plug-ins. Cumulatively, 8,471,426 plug-in vehicles have been sold in the United States since December 2010.
US plug-in and hybrid sales by month, January 2025 – July 2026
| Month | BEV | PHEV | PEV total | HEV | PEV share | HEV share | HSI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2025 | 94,035 | 22,160 | 116,195 | 133,489 | 10.50% | 12.07% | 1.15 |
| Feb 2025 | 86,040 | 22,804 | 108,844 | 148,162 | 8.96% | 12.19% | 1.36 |
| Mar 2025 | 120,820 | 37,376 | 158,196 | 194,998 | 9.93% | 12.24% | 1.23 |
| Apr 2025 | 96,348 | 32,865 | 129,213 | 190,169 | 8.83% | 12.99% | 1.47 |
| May 2025 | 101,750 | 26,900 | 128,650 | 193,411 | 8.81% | 13.24% | 1.50 |
| Jun 2025 | 111,577 | 19,507 | 131,084 | 156,246 | 10.30% | 12.28% | 1.19 |
| Jul 2025 | 126,356 | 22,998 | 149,354 | 172,269 | 10.75% | 12.40% | 1.15 |
| Aug 2025 | 148,769 | 26,004 | 174,773 | 181,048 | 11.91% | 12.34% | 1.04 |
| Sep 2025 | 140,579 | 20,040 | 160,619 | 150,988 | 12.94% | 12.16% | 0.94 |
| Oct 2025 | 83,292 | 12,441 | 95,733 | 173,481 | 7.47% | 13.54% | 1.81 |
| Nov 2025 | 54,634 | 12,346 | 66,980 | 175,814 | 5.24% | 13.74% | 2.62 |
| Dec 2025 | 75,840 | 13,456 | 89,296 | 199,963 | 6.12% | 13.70% | 2.24 |
| Jan 2026 | 71,323 | 10,199 | 81,522 | 151,689 | 7.38% | 13.73% | 1.86 |
| Feb 2026 | 58,284 | 10,927 | 69,211 | 163,637 | 5.87% | 13.88% | 2.36 |
| Mar 2026 | 76,058 | 13,155 | 89,213 | 206,867 | 6.42% | 14.90% | 2.32 |
| Apr 2026 | 89,113 | 16,791 | 105,904 | 223,384 | 7.64% | 16.11% | 2.11 |
| May 2026 | 101,312 | 18,562 | 119,874 | 255,157 | 8.06% | 17.15% | 2.13 |
| Jun 2026 | 84,622 | 16,815 | 101,437 | 222,226 | 7.42% | 16.25% | 2.19 |
| Jul 2026 | 73,443 | 19,769 | 93,212 | 205,949 | 6.83% | 15.10% | 2.21 |
Source: BEV, PHEV, HEV and light-duty totals from Argonne National Laboratory, Light Duty Electric Drive Vehicles Monthly Sales Updates (data through July 2026). PEV totals, shares and HSI values calculated by Axis Intelligence Research from that series.
Two months in this table carry the whole story. September 2025 was the last month a buyer could acquire a vehicle and still claim the federal credit: plug-ins took 12.94% of the market, the highest monthly share in the series, and the Hybrid Substitution Index fell to 0.94 — the only recent month in which plug-ins outsold conventional hybrids. Six weeks later, November 2025 recorded a 5.24% plug-in share and an HSI of 2.62.
Aidan Jad, EV & Clean Energy: A pull-forward and a hangover are normally symmetric — you borrow demand from next quarter and give it back. That is not what the monthly series shows. Plug-in share has climbed back from 5.24% to around 7% and stopped, while hybrid share has run from 13.7% to a 17.15% record in May. The buyers did not postpone the purchase. They bought a different drivetrain.
Why Did US EV Sales Fall in 2026?
The proximate cause is dated and documented. Public Law 119-21 repealed the three federal clean vehicle credits — the §30D new vehicle credit worth up to $7,500, the §25E used vehicle credit worth up to $4,000, and the §45W commercial credit — for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025 (Congressional Research Service). The Internal Revenue Service treats a vehicle as acquired when a binding written contract and a payment are both in place, which is why the demand cliff lands between September and October 2025 rather than at the calendar year boundary.
Plug-in sales fell 48.0% from the third quarter of 2025 (484,746 units) to the fourth (252,009 units), by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation from the Argonne series.
But a credit expiry alone does not explain why hybrids grew. The second variable is fuel price. US average retail gasoline was $2.89 a gallon on January 1, 2026 and $4.09 on April 1, 2026 (Alternative Fuels Data Center); the Energy Information Administration forecast a 2026 annual average of $3.70 against $3.10 in 2025. Hybrid share set its record — 17.15% — in May 2026, one month after the April gasoline reading.
That combination is unusual and it is the reason the US market in 2026 does not look like Canada’s or Europe’s. Expensive gasoline raises the value of fuel efficiency. The removal of a $7,500 credit raises the price of the most efficient option. A vehicle that cuts fuel bills without a purchase-price penalty and without a charger sits exactly in that gap, and 1,428,909 buyers found it.
What changed, in units
| Measure, January–July | 2025 | 2026 | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BEV | 736,926 | 554,155 | −24.8% | Axis calculation from Argonne |
| PHEV | 184,610 | 106,218 | −42.5% | Axis calculation from Argonne |
| Plug-in total (PEV) | 921,536 | 660,373 | −28.3% | Axis calculation from Argonne |
| Hybrid (HEV) | 1,188,744 | 1,428,909 | +20.2% | Axis calculation from Argonne |
| All light-duty | 9,501,054 | 9,278,013 | −2.3% | Axis calculation from Argonne |
| Plug-in share | 9.70% | 7.12% | −2.58 pts | Axis calculation from Argonne |
| Hybrid share | 12.51% | 15.40% | +2.89 pts | Axis calculation from Argonne |
| Electrified share (PEV+HEV) | 22.21% | 22.52% | +0.31 pts | Axis calculation from Argonne |
Source: Axis Intelligence Research calculations from Argonne National Laboratory monthly sales data, retrieved September 11, 2026. Full arithmetic in the Methodology section.
The last two rows are the finding most coverage of the US market misses. Electrified share did not fall. It rose slightly, by 0.31 points, while the overall light-duty market contracted 2.3%.
The Hybrid Substitution Index (HSI): Measuring What Replaced the Plug
Share figures tell you how far the plug-in market fell. They do not tell you where the buyer went. Axis Intelligence Research built the Hybrid Substitution Index (HSI) to answer that in one number.
HSI — Hybrid Substitution Index. How many conventional hybrid vehicles US buyers purchase for every plug-in vehicle purchased, in the same period, on the same national light-duty sales base.
Formula:
HSI = HEV sales ÷ PEV sales, where PEV = BEV + PHEV, both drawn from the Argonne National Laboratory monthly light-duty series for the same month or period.
Reading the scale. HSI below 1.00 means plug-ins outsell conventional hybrids. HSI at 2.00 means the market buys two hybrids per plug-in. Because both terms come from the same source, the same month and the same denominator population, HSI is immune to the definitional mismatches that break most cross-source EV comparisons — no registration lag, no manufacturer-reported delivery counts, no mixing of battery-electric-only series with plug-in-inclusive ones.
US Hybrid Substitution Index, January 2025 – July 2026
| Period | HEV sales | PEV sales | HSI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan–Jul 2025 | 1,188,744 | 921,536 | 1.29 |
| Full year 2025 | 2,070,038 | 1,508,937 | 1.37 |
| September 2025 (last credit month) | 150,988 | 160,619 | 0.94 |
| November 2025 (post-credit trough) | 175,814 | 66,980 | 2.62 |
| February 2026 (2026 peak) | 163,637 | 69,211 | 2.36 |
| Jan–Jul 2026 | 1,428,909 | 660,373 | 2.16 |
| July 2026 | 205,949 | 93,212 | 2.21 |
Source: Axis Intelligence Research, Hybrid Substitution Index, computed September 11, 2026 from Argonne National Laboratory monthly sales data. This is the baseline reading of the index.
The index moved 67.4% between the two January–July periods. It also shows something a quarterly chart hides: the extreme reading was November 2025, not the months that followed. HSI has settled in a 2.1–2.4 band for eight consecutive months, which is what a new equilibrium looks like rather than a shock still working through.
What HSI does not measure. It is a sales-mix ratio, not a causal estimate: it records that hybrids gained as plug-ins fell, not that the same individual buyers switched. It also treats all hybrids alike, from a 50 mpg compact to a full-size hybrid pickup.
Aidan Jad, EV & Clean Energy: For a utility planner, HSI is the number that matters more than plug-in share, because a conventional hybrid adds exactly zero kWh of charging load. A market at 22.5% electrified sounds like grid demand arriving. At an HSI of 2.16, roughly two-thirds of that electrified volume never touches a charger. Load forecasts built on “electrified share” are forecasting a market that has quietly stopped generating the load.
Which Vehicles Are Americans Actually Plugging In?
The body-style mix is the second place the post-credit market reorganized. Argonne’s July 2026 breakdown of the 660,373 plug-ins sold year to date shows a market that has consolidated into SUVs.
| Body style | 2026 YTD PEV sales | Share of PEVs | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small SUV | 353,403 | 53.5% | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Standard SUV | 108,646 | 16.5% | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Midsize car | 99,845 | 15.1% | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Minivan | 31,680 | 4.8% | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Pickup | 23,559 | 3.57% | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Large car | 23,394 | 3.5% | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Compact car | 11,963 | 1.8% | Argonne National Laboratory |
| Small station wagon | 7,883 | 1.2% | Argonne National Laboratory |
Source: Argonne National Laboratory, PEV Sales by Size, updated through July 2026. Argonne reports no two-seater, minicompact or subcompact plug-in sales in 2026 to date.
Seven in ten plug-ins sold in 2026 are SUVs. The compact and small-wagon segments together account for 3.0% — 19,846 vehicles across seven months. The electric pickup, the segment that absorbed the most US manufacturing capital in the last product cycle, is at 23,559 units, fewer than the minivan.
The plug-in hybrid result deserves its own line. PHEVs fell 42.5%, nearly twice the battery-electric decline, and now make up 16.1% of plug-in sales against 20.0% a year earlier. The powertrain marketed as the low-commitment bridge to electric lost the most ground the moment the subsidy went away — which suggests its US buyers were price-driven rather than range-anxious.
Where Are the US Charging Stations? Ports by State
The Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center counted 255,779 charging ports across 81,607 station locations on September 10, 2026: 179,552 Level 2, 75,516 DC fast, and 699 legacy Level 1. DC fast is 29.5% of the national network.
Geography is where the national figure stops being useful.
Top 15 states by charging ports, September 10, 2026
| Rank | State | Station locations | Charging ports | DC fast ports | DC fast share | Share of US ports | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 19,834 | 66,737 | 18,395 | 27.6% | 26.09% | DOE AFDC |
| 2 | New York | 5,642 | 21,629 | 3,416 | 15.8% | 8.46% | DOE AFDC |
| 3 | Florida | 4,360 | 14,995 | 5,077 | 33.9% | 5.86% | DOE AFDC |
| 4 | Texas | 3,757 | 12,550 | 5,282 | 42.1% | 4.91% | DOE AFDC |
| 5 | Massachusetts | 4,528 | 11,703 | 1,964 | 16.8% | 4.58% | DOE AFDC |
| 6 | Washington | 3,163 | 8,902 | 2,282 | 25.6% | 3.48% | DOE AFDC |
| 7 | Colorado | 2,878 | 7,783 | 1,681 | 21.6% | 3.04% | DOE AFDC |
| 8 | Georgia | 2,362 | 7,550 | 2,274 | 30.1% | 2.95% | DOE AFDC |
| 9 | New Jersey | 1,965 | 6,609 | 2,109 | 31.9% | 2.58% | DOE AFDC |
| 10 | Illinois | 1,839 | 6,086 | 2,879 | 47.3% | 2.38% | DOE AFDC |
| 11 | Pennsylvania | 2,039 | 5,796 | 2,001 | 34.5% | 2.27% | DOE AFDC |
| 12 | North Carolina | 1,887 | 5,793 | 1,889 | 32.6% | 2.26% | DOE AFDC |
| 13 | Michigan | 2,052 | 5,642 | 1,727 | 30.6% | 2.21% | DOE AFDC |
| 14 | Maryland | 1,684 | 5,567 | 1,513 | 27.2% | 2.18% | DOE AFDC |
| 15 | Virginia | 1,827 | 5,476 | 1,788 | 32.7% | 2.14% | DOE AFDC |
Source: DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Alternative Fueling Station Counts by State, data last updated September 10, 2026. DC fast share and share of US ports calculated by Axis Intelligence Research. All 51 jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, are in the CSV.
Axis Intelligence Research finds that five states — California, New York, Florida, Texas and Massachusetts — account for 49.9% of all US charging ports (127,614 of 255,779), and the ten largest hold 64.3%. At the other end, seven states — Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi — share 2,848 ports between them, 1.11% of the national network.
The DC fast column is where the network shows its strategy. Illinois runs 47.3% fast ports and Texas 42.1%, the profile of a corridor network built for through-traffic. Massachusetts sits at 16.8% and New York at 15.8% — dense Level 2 destination charging in metros where a driveway charger is not an option for most households. Two different infrastructure problems, two different answers, both labelled “charging buildout” in national totals.
Aidan Jad, EV & Clean Energy: Compare the two lists. California has 26.1% of the ports, and states with almost no ports at all are precisely where the vehicle fleet is oldest and drives the most miles. A national port count above a quarter of a million reads like a solved problem. Split by state it reads like two countries, and only one of them has a charging network.
Is the US Fleet Still Getting Cleaner Without the Credit?
Yes, and the mechanism has changed. US motor gasoline consumption averaged 8.9 million barrels per day in 2025, about 1% below 2024 and 4% below 2019, even though vehicle miles travelled rose 1.2% (Energy Information Administration). The EIA attributes that to implied fleet fuel economy improving 1.9% over the same period, and names rising hybrid sales as a contributor.
That is the quiet consequence of an HSI above 2. Fuel demand keeps falling, but through efficiency rather than electrification — which means it falls more slowly per vehicle, without shifting energy demand to the grid, and without the fleet turnover effect compounding the way a plug-in sale does.
| Indicator | Value | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motor gasoline consumption | 8.9 million b/d | 2025 | EIA |
| Change vs 2024 | about −1% | 2025 | EIA |
| Change vs 2019 | about −4% | 2025 | EIA |
| Implied fleet fuel economy | +1.9% | 2025 vs 2024 | EIA |
| Vehicle miles travelled | +1.2% | 2025 vs 2024 | EIA |
| Retail gasoline, national average | $4.09/gal | April 1, 2026 | DOE AFDC |
| Forecast gasoline average | $3.70/gal | 2026 | EIA STEO |
Sources: EIA Today in Energy, April 10, 2026; DOE AFDC average retail fuel prices; EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, April 2026.
How Does the US Compare With Other EV Markets in 2026?
Badly, on share, and the gap widened in 2026. The US plug-in share of 7.12% for January–July sits against a European Union plug-in share above 30% and a Chinese new-energy retail penetration above 57% — figures we break down market by market in our EV sales by country analysis, alongside the China and Europe country files.
One caution before anyone lines those numbers up in a single chart. The US figure here counts battery-electric plus plug-in hybrid against all light-duty vehicles including pickups and vans. The EU figure counts passenger car registrations. China’s counts new-energy vehicles, which include extended-range models the US series does not break out. Our global EV statistics hub keeps each definition separate for exactly this reason, and our EV adoption statistics page covers the buyer-intent side of the same question.
What travels across markets is the mechanism, not the number. Canada’s plug-in share fell after its federal rebate ended. The United States’ fell after its credit ended. Both markets had built demand curves that assumed the incentive was part of the price.
What Happens to US EV Sales for the Rest of 2026?
Three things are worth watching, and each has a data source that will settle it rather than an opinion.
Whether plug-in share holds around 7%. It has now printed between 5.87% and 8.06% for seven consecutive months, with July at 6.83%. Argonne’s August and September releases will show whether the floor is real.
Whether the September comparison flatters the market. September 2025 was the credit deadline month at 12.94% share. Any September 2026 figure will look catastrophic year over year for a reason that has nothing to do with current demand. Expect the headline, discount it, and read the sequential monthly number instead.
Whether hybrid share can keep climbing. May 2026’s 17.15% is the record in the Argonne series. If gasoline holds near the EIA’s $3.70 forecast average, the pressure that produced it stays in place — and HSI stays above 2.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure on this page was fetched from its source document between September 10 and 11, 2026, and logged in us-ev-statistics.csv with its URL and retrieval date. Primary sources used: Argonne National Laboratory’s Light Duty Electric Drive Vehicles Monthly Sales Updates (project page and the underlying monthly total-sales file through July 2026); the Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center station counts by state and average retail fuel price series; the Internal Revenue Service clean vehicle credit page; the Congressional Research Service report on clean vehicle tax credits; and two Energy Information Administration publications, the April 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook and the April 10, 2026 Today in Energy analysis of gasoline consumption.
Definitions. PEV (plug-in electric vehicle) = BEV + PHEV. HEV = conventional hybrid with no plug. LDV = all light-duty vehicles, Argonne’s denominator, which includes pickups and vans. Argonne’s light-duty definition covers vehicles up to 10,000 lbs, wider than the EPA’s 8,500 lb threshold, so shares here run slightly different from EPA-based series. Argonne sources monthly counts from Wards Auto.
Axis calculations, shown in full.
- Monthly and period sums: plain addition of the Argonne monthly BEV, PHEV, HEV and LDV columns. January–July 2026: BEV 554,155 + PHEV 106,218 = PEV 660,373. That sum reproduces Argonne’s own published year-to-date figure of 660,373 exactly, which validates the monthly extraction.
- Shares: PEV ÷ LDV for the same period. 660,373 ÷ 9,278,013 = 7.12%.
- HSI: HEV ÷ PEV. 1,428,909 ÷ 660,373 = 2.16.
- Replacement ratio: (1,428,909 − 1,188,744) ÷ (921,536 − 660,373) = 240,165 ÷ 261,163 = 0.92.
- Q4 2025 decline: 252,009 ÷ 484,746 − 1 = −48.0%.
- State port shares: state ports ÷ 255,779. DC fast share: state DC fast ports ÷ state total ports.
A disclosed discrepancy. Argonne states a 2025 annual plug-in share of 9.1% on a passenger-vehicle basis. Summing its own monthly series against its monthly light-duty totals gives 9.30%. The difference is the denominator, not the numerator: the published 9.1% uses a passenger-vehicle base, our 9.30% uses Argonne’s own light-duty column. Both appear in the CSV, separately labelled. We use the light-duty basis throughout this page so that every share on it is comparable to every other.
Internal consistency check. State charging-port counts transcribed from the AFDC table sum to 255,779 ports, 75,516 DC fast ports and 81,607 station locations — matching AFDC’s published national totals on all three, confirming no transcription error across the 51 jurisdictions.
What this page does not contain. No estimate of 2026 full-year sales, because five months of the year are unreported. No state-level sales figures: the DOE’s state EV registration series is a December 2023 snapshot [older data], too stale to pair with 2026 sales, so we publish state charging data (current to September 10, 2026) and national sales, and we do not blend the two into a per-state adoption score.
About This Dataset
us-ev-statistics.csv contains 515 rows covering: monthly BEV, PHEV, HEV and total light-duty sales for January 2025 through July 2026; derived plug-in, hybrid and total electrified shares for every month; the Hybrid Substitution Index for every month and period; January–July aggregates and year-over-year changes for both years; 2026 plug-in sales by body style; charging station locations, total ports, DC fast ports, DC fast share and national share for all 51 US jurisdictions as of September 10, 2026; national fuel prices; and the dated federal tax-credit termination provisions.
Every row carries source_org, source_document, source_url, retrieved_date, is_primary, axis_calculated and, where a figure is ours, a method_note stating the arithmetic. Values are raw: no currency symbols, no percent signs, no thousands separators. Dates are ISO 8601.
License: CC BY 4.0. Free to use, including commercially, with attribution to Axis Intelligence Research.
Cite This Page
APA: Axis Intelligence Research & Jad, A. (2026). US EV statistics 2026: Plug-in sales fell 28% and hybrids absorbed almost all of it. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/us-ev-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Aidan Jad. “US EV Statistics 2026: Plug-In Sales Fell 28% and Hybrids Absorbed Almost All of It.” Axis Intelligence, 11 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/us-ev-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research and Aidan Jad. “US EV Statistics 2026: Plug-In Sales Fell 28% and Hybrids Absorbed Almost All of It.” Axis Intelligence, September 11, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/us-ev-statistics/.
Frequently Asked Questions
If plug-in sales fell 28%, did Americans stop buying electrified vehicles?
No. Plug-ins plus conventional hybrids took 22.52% of US light-duty sales in January–July 2026, against 22.21% a year earlier. The electrified share of the market held; its composition changed. Axis Intelligence Research’s Hybrid Substitution Index moved from 1.29 to 2.16 over the same period.
Does a 7% plug-in share mean 7% of cars on US roads are electric?
No, and the two numbers are years apart. Sales share measures this year’s new vehicles. The installed fleet is a different quantity: 8,471,426 plug-ins have been sold in the United States since 2010, against a light-duty fleet of well over 250 million vehicles. Sales share is a leading indicator of the fleet, not a description of it.
Why did plug-in hybrids fall harder than battery-electric vehicles?
PHEV sales fell 42.5% in January–July 2026 against a 24.8% BEV decline. A plug-in hybrid’s case in the US market rested largely on getting a federal credit while keeping a gas tank. Remove the credit and the vehicle competes with a conventional hybrid that costs less, needs no charger, and — at $4.09 gasoline — delivers most of the fuel saving. The PHEV share of US plug-in sales fell from 20.0% to 16.1%.
Can a buyer still get the $7,500 federal EV credit in 2026?
No. The §30D new clean vehicle credit, the §25E used vehicle credit and the §45W commercial credit were repealed for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025. The IRS treats acquisition as requiring a binding written contract and a payment on or before that date; a vehicle acquired by that test but delivered later could still qualify. State and utility incentives are unaffected by the federal repeal.
Is 255,779 charging ports enough for the US market?
The national count is not the constraint — distribution is. Five states hold 49.9% of all ports and California alone holds 26.1%, while seven states share 1.11% between them. For a driver in a top-five state the network is dense; the same national figure describes a very different experience in the Plains and Mountain West.
What is the Hybrid Substitution Index and why does it matter for grid planning?
HSI is the ratio of conventional hybrid sales to plug-in sales in the same period, from the same source and denominator. It matters because a conventional hybrid adds no charging load. At an HSI of 2.16, roughly two-thirds of electrified sales volume never draws a kilowatt-hour from the grid — so utility load forecasts anchored to “electrified share” will overstate near-term EV demand.
Which vehicle segments are US plug-in sales actually concentrated in?
SUVs. Small SUVs alone are 53.5% of 2026 plug-in sales and standard SUVs another 16.5% — 70% of the market in two segments. Electric pickups are 23,559 units for the year to date, fewer than plug-in minivans, and the compact and small-wagon categories together account for 3.0%.
Where can I get the underlying US EV sales data myself?
Argonne National Laboratory publishes the monthly light-duty series free, including a downloadable file with every month back to December 2010; the DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center publishes station counts by state, updated continuously. Our CSV combines both with the derived shares and index values already calculated, each row carrying its own source URL.
Will US EV sales recover in 2027?
Nothing in the current data forecasts that, and the honest answer is that it depends on variables not yet set: vehicle pricing without the credit, gasoline prices, fuel-economy standards, and state-level incentives. What the series does show is a stabilised floor — plug-in share has printed between 5.87% and 8.06% for seven straight months — rather than a continuing slide.