Report: California Auto Sales Leveling off, Tesla Sales Slip

New vehicle registrations in California seem to be leveling off, while consumer tastes for Telsas cooled slightly.

California’s new light vehicle registrations fell by 1.7% from a year earlier, totaling 1,320,708 units, an outlook covering the first three quarters of 2024 from the California New Car Dealers Association shows.

The state is forecasted to reach 1.75 million new vehicle registrations by year-end. Sales in 2023 reached 1.77 million. Early 2025 estimates remain in the narrow range, with total projected sales to reach 1.79 million, the CNCDA report shows.

Three of the past four years have totaled roughly 1.76 million registrations, far less than the pre-pandemic years (2015-2019), which hovered above 2 million registrations. Affordability remains a key issue holding back numbers, the report shows.

However, lower interest rates, falling inflation, increasing employment and rising incentives may help sales rise into 2025, according to the CNCDA.

The Tesla Model Y remains the state’s top-selling car in, but sales are down 8.5% market share compared to last year. Manufacturers and dealers have expanded their share of battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales to 40.2% as consumers increasingly turn new electric vehicle (EV) options.

Brands like Kia (up 1.4%), BMW (up 1.3%), and Hyundai (up 1.3%) have increased their year-to-date market shares. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 is now the third best-selling BEV in California, according to the report.

BEVs comprise 22.2% of the state’s market share, up slightly this year. Accounting for all alternative powertrains—plug-in hybrids, hybrids, and BEVs— these vehicles accounted for 39.4% of new sales in the first nine months of 2024, an increase from just 11.6% in 2018, the report shows.

Toyota remains California’s preferred brand among all powertrains with 215,402 registrations for the year and 16.3% of the market share.

Other market share brand leaders this year are Tesla (12.1% market share) and Honda (10.9% market share).

Five brands in the have improved their registrations by 20% or more this year: Jaguar (222.6%), Buick (39.9%), Rivian (35.4%), Lincoln (27.6%) and Dodge (20%).