Rivian Jumps to #2 as US EV Sales Find a Floor

US EV sales hit a one-year high in Q3 2026 while Rivian jumped to second place behind Tesla. The Cox Automotive numbers behind the post-incentive reset.

By motologic.techOctober 27, 20264 min read15 views

A year after the federal EV tax credit expired and froze the market, the numbers are in for the first full post-incentive quarter — and they tell a surprising story. US EV sales hit their highest volume in a year in Q3 2026, and the brand standings underneath the headline have been completely reshuffled: Rivian jumped from sixth to second place, Toyota's EV sales nearly quintupled, and several brands that leaned hardest on the $7,500 credit saw sales fall by half or more.

The Market: Smaller Than the Peak, But Growing Again

Kelley Blue Book's estimates (published by Cox Automotive) put Q3 2026 US EV sales at roughly 262,600–266,600 units:

Up about 6 percent from Q2 — the best quarter in a year.
Down 38.6 percent from Q3 2025, but that comparison is distorted: a year ago buyers were stampeding to beat the tax credit's expiry, producing the biggest EV quarter in US history.
EV share reached about 6.4 percent of new-vehicle sales, up from 5.8 percent in Q2. Add hybrids and plug-in hybrids and nearly 25 percent of all new vehicles sold were electrified.

Cox's director of industry insights, Stephanie Valdez Streaty, says the improvement through 2026 "suggests the reset phase is largely behind us," pointing to gasoline prices well above $4 a gallon as a tailwind — AAA's national average for regular sat at $4.29 last week, versus $3.06 a year ago.

Pricing is doing its part: the average new EV transacted at $55,842 in September, down 3.1 percent year over year, with the price premium over comparable gas vehicles narrowing to $5,611 from an average of $8,665 in 2025.

Rivian: Second Place, Powered by Vans

Rivian sold an estimated 19,239 vehicles in Q3, up 45.7 percent year over year — while the overall EV market fell nearly 40 percent. That was enough to leapfrog Chevrolet, Hyundai, Cadillac, and Toyota into the number-two brand position, with a 7.2 percent segment share. Year to date, Rivian is at 41,009 vehicles, up 26.8 percent, in a market still down 30 percent for the year.

The composition is the real surprise:

Commercial vans (EDV 500/700): 8,469 units, up 220.9 percent — roughly 44 percent of Rivian's quarter, and the fourth-best-selling EV model in the entire country, behind only the Model Y, Model 3, and Hyundai Ioniq 5.
R2: 3,456 deliveries in its first quarter on sale — already more than Lucid's entire brand.
R1S: 5,582 (-31.8%) and R1T: 1,732 (-27.2%) — the aging flagships are now the soft spot, as the cheaper R2 gives buyers a new way into the brand.

The Rest of the Table: A Brutal Reshuffle

The top five after Tesla and Rivian: Toyota (12,904, +328 percent), Cadillac (12,358, -32.8 percent), and Hyundai (12,185, -57.7 percent). Lexus surged 442 percent to 8,464.

The declines among former credit-dependent sellers are stark: Ford fell 80.2 percent to 6,047 (the Mustang Mach-E dropped 72.4 percent), Chevrolet fell 74.6 percent, and Honda fell 75.9 percent. Only six brands in KBB's table grew year over year: Rivian, Toyota, Lexus, Subaru, Mercedes, and Ram.

Tesla: smaller sales, bigger kingdom

Tesla's estimated 144,094 US sales were down 19.7 percent — yet its market share rose to 54 percent, because everyone else's declines were deeper. The Model Y alone (99,037 units) outsold every other EV brand in the country, accounting for 37.2 percent of all US EV sales.

What Q4 Will Tell Us

Cox frames Q4 as the first genuinely clean demand test: no expiring incentives on either side of the comparison. Watch three things — whether Rivian's R2 ramps past the R1S as deliveries widen beyond the launch trim, whether Toyota and Lexus hold their fivefold gains, and whether the Detroit brands' retrenched EV plans (GM, recall, took a 62 percent US EV sales hit last quarter amid its $7.4 billion capacity reset) stabilize at their new, smaller volumes.

FAQ

Didn't EV sales collapse after the tax credit ended?

They dropped sharply in Q4 2025 and early 2026, but Q3 2026 was the highest-volume quarter in a year, up 6 percent from Q2. The market is smaller than the incentive-fueled 2025 peak but growing again — what Cox calls the end of the "reset phase."

How did Rivian pass Chevrolet and Hyundai?

By growing 45.7 percent while credit-dependent brands fell 50–80 percent. Rivian's commercial van business more than tripled (8,469 units), and the new, cheaper R2 added 3,456 sales in its debut quarter.

Are EVs getting cheaper without the tax credit?

Yes — automakers are absorbing the gap. Average EV transaction prices fell 3.1 percent year over year to $55,842, and the premium over comparable gas cars narrowed to about $5,611 from $8,665 in 2025.

Is Tesla losing the EV market?

Its sales fell 19.7 percent, but its share rose to 54 percent because rivals fell harder. Tesla sold more EVs in Q3 than all other brands combined, and the Model Y alone outsold every competing brand.

Sources

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