US car market: End of electric car subsidy in the US torpedoes sales

Without the electric vehicle subsidy that Donald Trump abolished, sales of battery-powered vehicles in the US plummeted in October. Ford's electric car sales fell by a quarter year-on-year to just over 4,700 vehicles. In contrast, sales of combustion engine vehicles rose by 3.4 percent to nearly 153,400 cars. In recent years, Ford had invested billions in expanding its electric vehicle production in an effort to catch up with Tesla, a leading manufacturer in the field.

The US president ensured that the $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an electric car expired at the end of September. This resulted in record deliveries for Tesla last quarter – even though, unlike many other manufacturers, the market leader does not disclose sales figures for the US market and generally only releases numbers every three months. Experts expect that Tesla, too, will experience a downturn after the US subsidies end.

Among the other manufacturers, not all release monthly US sales figures. South Korean automaker Hyundai, for example, announced that sales of its Ioniq 5 electric model plummeted by 63 percent year-on-year to just over 1,600 vehicles. At its sister brand Kia, sales of the EV9 model fell by almost two-thirds to 666 cars.

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