Tesla remains frontrunner in EV sales despite drop in market share

Yahoo Finance autos reporter Pras Subramanian explains how Tesla is still the industry leader in electric vehicles (EVs) despite losing some market share.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Tesla may still be the top selling EV brand in the States, but for how much longer? Now, according to a new report from S&P Global Mobility, Musk's car company has lost considerable market share during the pandemic. Pras, what can you tell us about this? Because, obviously, Tesla is getting more competitors in this space, but it looks like people are being attracted to other brands as a result.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, so Tesla is still a king at around 65% of all EV registrations through the first nine months of this year. But that came down from 79% a year ago. So they're kind of getting competitors nipping at their heels there. So one of the big things is that it's the cheaper competitors like the Chevy Bolts of the world, the Kia EV6s of the world that are sort of taking Tesla out in the lower end of the market, whereas Tesla is still up, doing well in the hard part of the market.

So that's one good thing for them is that the luxury end is there still. But we'll see more cars from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, that might eat into them there. But S&P says that one big thing they have is that they have the scale that most other companies don't have. They're making a million and a half EVs a year. No one has that quite yet.

SEANA SMITH: Not yet. I think that's the [INAUDIBLE] part that--

DAVE BRIGGS: GM, Ford.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, I know it's hard--

DAVE BRIGGS: The big boys have scale, and they are all in with a much--

SEANA SMITH: They are.

DAVE BRIGGS: --more diverse product.

SEANA SMITH: I know. It's going to be very hard.

DAVE BRIGGS: I sound like a broken record, don't I, Pras?

SEANA SMITH: You've always been skeptical now for quite some time, right, Pras? Thanks so much.