It’s a Great Time to Shop for an Electric Vehicle: Report

Between incentives, price cuts and high inventory levels, it’s definitely a buyer’s market for electric vehicles. Inventory of new EVs increased 99.7% year over year, according to Cars.com’s data, which has led to an oversupply of EVs on lots that gives shoppers plenty of room to bargain.

Related: 2024 Cars.com Affordability Report: Best Value New Cars

As such, automakers and dealerships alike have been offering various sales and leasing deals to move inventory, and it’s working. New- and used-EV listings on Cars.com now spend an average of 81 days live on the site, which is still up 66.5% from the same time in 2023, but notably down 11.3% from March. That’s also longer than the overall average of 66 days that a new car currently spends on a dealership’s lot. Certain models have been more heavily incentivized or are selling faster than others, so here’s our look at where the best deals are and which brands are finding success with them.

New-EV Incentives Make Them a Screaming Deal

If there’s any sign that EVs have truly become normal, perhaps it’s the fact that most models are widely available on dealership lots nowadays. Automakers started stocking them much like they would with any other vehicle, although in this case, they seem to have overestimated the public’s demand. List prices for EVs are still higher than their internal combustion counterparts at a time when consumers are anxious over high interest rates. And while you can now apply EV tax credits at the time of purchase to lower the take-home costs of a new car, the ever-changing list of which EVs qualify can be confusing to navigate.

Thank good ol’ supply and demand if you’ve been interested in buying an EV but aren’t sure if you can afford it. Too much supply has pushed automakers to cut prices and offer incentives on new EVs both for sale and lease. To wit: A Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor can be leased for as little as $299 per month for 27 months through the end of May. Additionally, Kia started discounting the EV9 before it even hit dealership lots, and even at the time of this writing, the brand is offering up to $9,000 off the purchase price as well as financing at 0% for up to 48 months for qualified buyers.

These incentives are working for some automakers. The Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X twins were the first and fourth fastest-selling new EVs, respectively, in April as determined by the number of days listings for those cars were live on Cars.com. (“Sales” in this context includes both purchased and leased vehicles.) Subaru currently advertises 0% APR for up to 72 months or a $329-per-month lease payment with $0 down on the Solterra until the end of May, and the Toyota currently has an offer for 60 months of financing at 0% that expires June 3 for the bZ4X.

The third hottest-selling EV in our data, the Cadillac Lyriq, offers $7,500 off the purchase price of any vehicles that don’t qualify for the federal EV tax credit to bridge the gap as parent company GM adjusts its sourcing to fully requalify for the credit. Even the stunning Audi E-Tron GT offers up to $3,000 in cash off of its lease or purchase price through June 3, which likely helped it become the fifth hottest-selling EV in April on Cars.com.

Many new-EV offers extend to previous model-year vehicles that are still sitting on the lots as well. The second bestselling EV in April per Cars.com data was the Mercedes-EQ EQB, which currently advertises up to $7,500 in lease bonus cash on 2023 models, albeit with a $499 monthly payment for an EQB250+.

Searching for Deals

The most searched EVs on Cars.com in April reflect this appetite for a good deal. The Ford F-150 Lightning topped the list of most searched new EVs on the site, and it’s a model with a glut of unsold 2023 inventory on the lot that sports lower pricing than the 2024 trucks, as well as an offer of financing at 1.9% for 72 months to help move it along — and because these are still new, they also qualify for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits. The Chevrolet Blazer EV also broke into the top five most searched EVs after going back on sale in March with a significant price cut.

Meanwhile, on the used side, another American manufacturer dominates the search: Tesla. The Models 3, S, Y and X were our four most searched used EVs in April in part because of their high availability compared to other EVs and the inexpensive price point of used Teslas. The automaker’s recent new-car price cuts have also affected used Tesla prices, as we discovered when we traded in our long-term Model Y. The Porsche Taycan rounded out the top five, which is also likely fed by a steep depreciation curve.

More From Cars.com:

Lower Used-EV Prices, More Used-EV Searches

Searches for used electric vehicles continue to rise — up nearly 45% from the same time in 2023 — in response to falling used prices. Used-EV prices have fallen 20.2% year over year, but that doesn’t tell the full story for every hot used EV. The Rivian R1S and R1T topped our list of fastest-selling used EVs thanks in part to the short supply of new Rivians for sale.

Coming in third and fourth among fastest-selling used EVs were the Chevrolet Bolt EUV and Bolt EV, which have a rather unique value proposition for buyers. The Bolt models may be on hiatus as GM transitions it over to the Ultium platform it’s sharing across multiple models, but they were only discontinued in 2023, and many of the used Bolts on sale come with a brand-new or barely used battery pack thanks to a recent extensive recall. Used EVs also have simpler qualifications for the used-EV tax credit, so every Bolt that’s being resold for the first time, save for 2023 models, qualifies for up to $4,000 off provided you meet the income requirements.

Those government incentives for new and used EVs alike, while complicated, have continued to grow the market for EVs despite the fact that the rate of growth has slowed. Used EVs aren’t sticking around as long on the lots as new ones, though, with listings staying live on Cars.com for an average of 65 days — a full 16 days less than those of new EVs. As with most of our car-buying guidance for 2024, you may want to consider expanding your search to new cars to take advantage of the extra incentives and bargaining room.

Cars.com’s Editorial department is your source for automotive news and reviews. In line with Cars.com’s long-standing ethics policy, editors and reviewers don’t accept gifts or free trips from automakers. The Editorial department is independent of Cars.com’s advertising, sales and sponsored content departments.