How car buyers can find value in the used electric vehicle market
For those in the market for a used electric car, you may find good value by looking beyond Teslas.
- Tesla buyers paid an average of $53,421 for a new car in the first quarter of 2026, which is $1,087 less than the average price for an EV.
- Tesla’s price in March 2026 was 2.6% lower than in March 2025, supported by increased incentive spending.
- Tesla sold nearly half of all EVs purchased in the U.S. in 2025, a total of 589,160.
Tesla buyers paid $1,087 less than other electric car buyers, according to the latest data released by Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book.
The average price of a new Tesla EV in the first three months of 2026 was $53,421, according to Kelley Blue Book. By comparison, the average price for all new electric vehicles during the same period was $54,508, KBB said.
Tesla’s average price in March was 2.6% lower than the average transaction value in March 2025 and 1.2% lower than Tesla’s average price in February, the group said.
“On the automotive side, I think it’s always worth noting that Tesla cars are an incredible value for money, and they’re all self-driving, depending on what part of the world you’re in,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors on April 22 as he announced the company’s first-quarter results.
KBB pointed out that “Tesla’s incentive spending also increased in March.”
According to KBB, Tesla’s price is supported by an increase in average incentive amount of approximately $6,570.78, which is 12.3% of the overall average transaction price. The average incentive amount for other electric vehicles in March was $7,958.16, which was 14.6% of the overall average price of a new EV.
Why are Tesla EVs cheaper than other electric cars?
Tesla sells nearly half of the EVs purchased in the U.S. each year. Cox Automotive said it sold 589,160 of the 1,275,714 electric vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2025, or 46% of all EVs purchased last year.
That allows Tesla to endure selling EVs at lower prices than most competitors, said Stephanie Valdez Streeti, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “Selling about 600,000 vehicles a year in the U.S. has given Tesla the amount of vertical integration to build its own batteries, motors, software and electronics, removing supplier margins from the most expensive parts of its vehicles,” Valdez-Striti said. Email. “They now manage their own battery supply chain from raw materials to finished cells.”
Valdez-Striti added that Tesla’s scale allows it to deliver “multilayered cost benefits” that benefit consumers in terms of sticker prices.
“Competitors are battling higher manufacturing costs and a retail cost structure that Tesla doesn’t have,” she said. “Tesla has reported record-low costs per vehicle in recent quarters, and its own filings credit manufacturing efficiency and vertical integration as key factors. No other automaker is on this curve.”
Tesla has made clear that it also considers its low prices to be a competitive advantage. The company’s chief financial officer, Vaibhav Taneja, said on a conference call with investors on April 22 that Tesla’s value allows it to take advantage of the surge in interest in electric vehicles that has occurred since gas prices soared in the early days of the U.S.-Iran war.
“In terms of backlog, we ended the quarter with the highest first-quarter backlog in the past two years,” Taneja said. “While the recent increase in gas prices has had a positive impact on order rates, this improvement predates the upward trend in gas prices and is due to the Tesla team’s commitment to bringing more attractive and affordable vehicles to market.”
How many unsold EVs does Tesla have and why is it having trouble moving them?
A deal is likely possible because Tesla produced 50,363 more electric vehicles than it could sell in the first three months of 2026, even as rising gas prices revealed a slight uptick in interest in EVs.
According to a report released by Tesla on April 2nd, 408,386 cars were produced worldwide in the first three months of 2026. However, the company said it sold only 358,023 units in the first quarter.
Tesla’s production increase comes amid declining overall sales of electric vehicles. EV sales fell in 2025 after President Donald Trump and Congress eliminated a $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers that had been available to shoppers for the better part of a decade.
According to the Automotive Innovation Coalition, EV sales will account for 9.6% of U.S. auto sales in 2025, down from 10.2% in 2024.
However, Tesla remains the country’s largest EV seller. The number of EVs the company didn’t sell in the first three months of 2026 exceeded the total number of vehicles sold in 2025 by other pure EV manufacturers, including Rivian and Lucid.
The difference between Tesla’s production and sales levels is much larger than the 16,131-unit difference between the 434,358 electric vehicles and 418,227 electric vehicle sales the company reported in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Tesla announced that it produced 1,654,667 EVs and sold 1,636,129 EVs in all of 2025, a difference of 18,538 EVs over the past year.
