General Motors Knows Its EV Party Won

• General Motors had its best-ever month of EV sales in August. 
• It sold over 21,000 electric cars in the U.S. that month. 
• “There’s no doubt we’ll see lower EV sales next quarter after tax credits end September 30,” one executive said. 

General Motors’ electric Cadillacs and Chevys have been flying off of dealer lots this summer. But the automaker knows the party won’t last. 

On Tuesday, GM said it sold over 21,000 EVs in the U.S. in August, a new monthly record that beat July’s 19,000 (also a record at the time). Tally up the carmaker’s electric sales so far this year, and you get somewhere north of 118,000—meaning that in the first eight months of 2025, GM has surpassed 2024’s total of around 114,000. 

2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV at a Tesla Supercharger

Photo by: Tim Levin/InsideEVs

The booming sales can be attributed to a stampede of new battery-equipped models, like the Cadillac Escalade IQ, an electric version of the brand’s iconic land yacht. On the other end of the spectrum, the value-oriented Chevrolet Equinox EV has been a runaway hit in a market long-dominated by high-end cars. In between, you’ll find other fresh options like the small-but-mighty Cadillac Optiq and new high-performance models like the Chevy Blazer EV SS and Cadillac Lyriq-V. 

But the bonanza, especially over the last two months, is also clearly driven by another powerful force: FOMO. The Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, shuts the door on all EV tax credits come October 1. Analysts have predicted that the three months in between would be some of the best ever for America’s EV market, as people rushed to claim the $7,500 discount before it was too late. And they were spot on. 

GM says it’s well aware that this phenomenon is inflating sales right now—and that EV demand will look very different after the federal government yanks support.

“We’re expecting strong demand once again in September. The question, of course, is what’s next?,” Duncan Aldred, GM’s president of North America, said in a blog post. “There’s no doubt we’ll see lower EV sales next quarter after tax credits end September 30, and it may take several months for the market to normalize. We will almost certainly see a smaller EV market for a while, and we won’t overproduce.”

Higher effective EV prices will undoubtedly lead to lower sales. On top of that, the Trump-directed rollback of various vehicle efficiency regulations will remove the sticks that were pushing car companies to sell more electric cars.

At the same time, many car companies—GM included—see EVs as simply a better technology and have invested heavily in its future. It’s clear America’s EV market will slow down sharply. The big questions going forward are: by how much, and for how long?

The research firm BloombergNEF, for its part, drastically revised down its short-term and long-term forecasts for U.S. plug-in car sales as a result of policy shifts. Now BNEF projects that 14 million fewer such vehicles will hit U.S. roads between 2025 and 2030 than it previously estimated. 

Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com