Tesla's US market share grows through the EV carnage

• Tesla's US electric vehicle market share has grown to 51.3%, despite numerous challenges.
• Overall US EV sales dropped 15% in Q1 as buyers favored hybrids.
• Tesla's future partly depends on the reception of Elon Musk's ambitious robotaxi service.

Lately, it feels like almost everything is going wrong for Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk.

However, there's some surprisingly good news buried in the carnage of the electric vehicle market.

Tesla's US market share actually grew in the first quarter. That follows a similar increase in the fourth quarter, according to EV sales data from Cox Automotive's Kelley Blue Book.

Since the end of September, Tesla's share of the US EV market has grown by 1.3 percentage points to 51.3%. That outpaced all other automakers. Hyundai, VW, and BMW lost market share in the period.

This leaves Tesla way ahead. The next closest rival is Ford, with a meager 7.4% market share.

These stats say more about the general sorry state of the US EV market. Overall sales dropped 15% during the first quarter as more car buyers picked hybrids instead.

Shares of EV maker Rivian have slumped 59% so far this year. Polestar is a penny stock and Fisker is just trying to stay alive.

Tesla's stock is down 37% in 2024. That's still a lot and it represents a loss of well over $100 billion in market value.

The company has been slashing prices to try to shed rising inventory of unsold vehicles. And yet, it massively missed Wall Street sales expectations. Recent layoffs and high-profile departures are spooking investors. In China and other EV markets, there's intense competition from BYD and other EV makers.

So, there's still a lot going wrong. But Tesla remains the world's most valuable car company by a cool $100 billion. (Toyota's second).

Does that mean there's more stock pain to come for Tesla? A lot depends now on how investors receive Musk's ambitious robotaxi service. The launch date for that is August 8. At the moment, anyway.