Tesla buyers paid $1,087 less than other EV shoppers. Here's why

• Tesla buyers paid an average of $53,421 for a new vehicle in the first quarter of 2026, which is $1,087 less than the average EV price.
• Tesla's prices in March 2026 were 2.6% lower than in March 2025, aided by increased incentive spending.
• Tesla sold nearly half of all EVs purchased in the U.S. in 2025, totaling 589,160 vehicles.

Tesla buyers paid $1,087 less than other electric car shoppers, 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 of all new electric vehicles in the same period was $54,508, KBB said.

The group said Tesla's average prices in March were 2.6% lower than its March 2025 average transaction amount, and it was also 1.2% lower than February's average Tesla price.

"On our vehicle side, it's always, I think, worth noting that a Tesla car is (an) incredible value for money and they're all autonomy-ready depending on what part of the world you're in," Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors as his company was reporting first-quarter earnings on April 22.

KBB noted "incentive spending at Tesla also increased in March."

KBB said Tesla's price was aided by increased average incentive amount of about $6,570.78, which was 12.3% of its overall average transaction price. The average incentive amount for other electric cars in March was $7,958.16, which was 14.6% of the overall average price of a new EV.

Why are Tesla's EVs cheaper than other electric cars?

Tesla sells almost half the EVs that are purchased in the U.S. every year. The company sold 589,160 of the 1,275,714 electric cars that were sold in the U.S. in 2025, which is 46% of the EVs that were purchased last year, according to Cox Automotive.

Because of that, Tesla is able to withstand selling their EVs at lower prices than most of their competitors are, Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, said.

"Selling roughly 600,000 vehicles a year in the U.S. gave Tesla the volume to vertically integrate - building its own batteries, motors, software, and electronics - which removes supplier margins from the most expensive parts of the vehicle," Valdez Streaty said an email. "They're now controlling their own battery supply chain from raw materials to finished cell."

Valdez Streaty added that Tesla's scale allows it to have "layered cost advantages" that benefit consumers when it comes to sticker prices.

"Competitors are fighting higher manufacturing costs and a retail cost structure that Tesla simply doesn't have," she said. "Tesla has reported all-time lows in cost per vehicle in recent quarters, with its own filings crediting manufacturing efficiencies and vertical integration as the primary drivers. No other automaker is on that curve."

Tesla has made it clear it also sees its lower prices as a competitive advantage. The company's chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja said in an April 22 call with investors that Tesla's value is allowing them to take advantage of the surge in interest in electric cars that has occurred since gas prices spiked at the beginning of the U.S.-Iran war.

"On the order backlog front, we ended the quarter with the highest Q1 order backlog in over 2 years," Taneja said. "Whilst the recent increase in gas prices has had a positive impact on the order rate, this improvement started before the uptrend in gas prices. This is due to the work done by the Tesla team in bringing more compelling and affordable vehicles to market."

How many unsold EVs does Tesla have, and why are they having trouble moving them?

Tesla produced 50,363 more electric cars than it was able to sell in the first three months of 2026, even with a slight uptick in EV interest becoming apparent amid rising gas prices, so deals are likely available.

Tesla reported production of 408,386 cars globally in the first three months of 2026, according to a report released by the company on April 2. But the company said it was only able to sell 358,023 vehicles in the first quarter.

The increase in Tesla's production came as overall electric car sales were falling. EV sales fell in 2025, as President Donald Trump and Congress eliminated a popular $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers that was offered to shoppers for the better part of a decade.

EV sales accounted for 9.6% of U.S. auto sales in 2025, which was down from 10.2% in 2024, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.

But Tesla is still the nation's biggest EV seller. The company's number of unsold EVs from the first three months of 2026 was higher than the total number of vehicles sold by other purely EV makers such as Rivian and Lucid in 2025.

The delta between Tesla's production and sales levels is much higher than the 16,131 vehicle gap the company reported in the fourth quarter of 2025, when Tesla said it produced 434,358 electric cars and sold 418,227.

For all of 2025, Tesla said it produced 1,654,667 EVs and sold 1,636,129, a gap of 18,538 units for the past year.