EVs, Hybrid sales were strong in May as overall demand holds steady

With tax refund season behind us and tariff talks taking a back seat to other dystopian headlines, the month of May gave us our first “clean” look at the US car market in 2025 – and the verdict is in: hybrids are leading the charge while EVs are a mixed bag.

As ever, there are plenty of ways to organize stories like this, and there are more comprehensive sources out there that will give you a deep, model-by-model dive into sales. That said, I’m focusing on the standout performers and “usual suspects” when it comes to EVs and hybrids – but don’t let that stop you from leaving your better ideas in the comments (y’all know I read ’em).

Kia posted 79,007 units in May for a 5.0% YOY gain and the brand’s eighth consecutive month of year-over-year gains. That number was helped along with a record month for the Carnival minivan and both the Telluride and Sportage SUVs. Two car lines that didn’t help were the Kia EV6 and the brand’s flagship EV9 three-row SUV, which sold just 37 units last month.

Some of that is inventory-based, as Kia shifts EV9 production from South Korea to its new EV factory in Gerogia – but no matter the reason, Kia dealers are eager to move their EVs. That means buyers killer deals on the brand EVs and still solid deals on the Kia Sportage Hybrid and Sorrento Plug-in Hybrid, too.

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Hyundai also had a killer month, with total up 8% YOY and 3.7% from April, which works out to a massive 84,521 unit sales for the month of May.

“This period really marks our regular annual pricing review,” Randy Parker, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, told a Reuters reporter yesterday. “We take a look at market dynamics, consumer demand, independent of tariffs.”

Car Dealership Guy reports that those gains were driven by Hyundai’s Elantra N (+141%), and the Venue (+74%), Tucson (+15%), and Palisade (+10%) SUVs, which all set May records. Even the IONIQ 6 electric sedan – my pick as the top Tesla Model 3 alternative – was up 9% YOY, while the first examples of the brand’s three-row IONIQ 9 SUV finally began. Hyundai’s hybrid sales, too, were up 5% for the year.

Toyota saw a massive gain last month as well, delivering nearly 119,000 “electrified” vehicles in May. That number represents a gain of 39% compared to the same month last year, and accounted for almost half of the brand’s total volume for an 11% gain YOY.

Toyota, of course, is the OG in the hybrid space, and in 2025 – nearly thirty years after the launch of the original Toyota Prius in Japan – almost all of the brand’s vehicles are hybrid-only or available as hybrids, including the iconic Corolla and Camry brands, the Sierra minivan, and even the Tacoma and Tundra hybrid pickups.

Over at Ford, CNBC is reporting that sales of the company’s cars were up an impressive 17.2% YOY, driven partly by the brand’s employee pricing deals but even more partly (?) by an absolutely massive 29% jump in the sale of the company’s Ford and Lincoln hybrid models. Lincoln posted its best month of 2025, up 39% YOY.

Sales of the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric crossover held relatively steady, while Ford F-150 Lightning and E-Transit van sales were down some 25% YOY.

On the wrong side of the growth table, Subaru sales dipped more than 10% YOY and 6.6% compared to April, while experience the biggest dip of all the legacy brands, down 18.6% YoY and 23.2% vs April. It’s worth noting that Tesla does not release monthly sales data in the US, but its overseas sales are even worse than that. CNEVPost is reporting that sales are down 15% in China for May, while Tesla sales in Germany fell by more than a third in May, even though EV sales overall rose 44.9% YOY.

Cox Auto’s forecast for May puts the 2025 sales pace at about 16 million unit sales, up slightly from a year earlier but a significant decline from March’s projected sales pace of 17.8 million and April’s 17.3 million unit projected pace.

SOURCES: source links throughout the article.

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