{"id":23416,"date":"2025-02-21T11:37:15","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T18:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/in-colorados-booming-ev-market-tesla-is-losing-ground-to-nissan-leaf\/"},"modified":"2025-02-21T18:37:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T18:37:15","slug":"in-colorados-booming-ev-market-tesla-is-losing-ground-to-nissan-leaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/in-colorados-booming-ev-market-tesla-is-losing-ground-to-nissan-leaf\/","title":{"rendered":"In Colorado\u2019s booming EV market, Tesla is losing ground to Nissan Leaf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A white Nissan Leaf EV is for sale at Tynan\u2019s Nissan dealership in Aurora. (Sam Brasch\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Tynan\u2019s Nissan, a dealership in Aurora, was offering a lease on Nissan Leaf EV for $19 per month after taxes and dealer fees in mid-2024.<\/p>\n

Before he walked into the dealership in early February, Gregory Kothe of Broomfield knew exactly what he wanted: an incredibly cheap Nissan Leaf.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the prices,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a done deal. It\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kothe, who had totaled his Mazda 3 swerving into a 6-inch curb after another driver cut him off, ended up driving away from the dealership in a Leaf SV Plus. That required about $3,000 up front along with an agreement to pay $50 per month for a two-year lease. The deal struck him as an affordable way to try an electric car without a long-term commitment.<\/p>\n

Similar deals have helped the humble hatchback \u2013 the first mass-market EV ever sold in the U.S. \u2013 take a leading role in Colorado\u2019s booming electric car market. In 2024, Colorado drivers registered more than 5,600 Nissan Leafs, marking a more than 800% increase over the previous year, according to the latest quarterly report from the Colorado Auto Dealers Association. The Nissan Ariya, an electric crossover SUV, notched a roughly 400% increase in registrations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if the trend can continue because of shrinking state EV incentives and an imperiled federal tax rebate. But Colorado\u2019s embrace of cheap electric cars is a big reason Colorado recently overtook California as the nation\u2019s top state for EV market share.<\/p>\n

It also helped shift the hierarchy of EV brands. Nissan now ranks as the state\u2019s second-most popular EV carmaker, narrowly losing out the longtime leader in Colorado and around the country: Tesla.<\/p>\n

\"People
People protesting Elon Musk\u2019s actions in the Trump administration hold signs outside a Tesla showroom in Seattle on Feb. 13. (Manuel Valdes\/Associated Press)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Manuel Valdes)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
A rough year for Elon Musk\u2019s car company<\/div>\n

After years of rapid sales growth, Tesla experienced its first worldwide decline in 2024 amid rising competition from other carmakers.<\/p>\n

Colorado was no exception to the global sales slump. The state saw a 5% drop in Tesla registration between 2023 and 2024, according to the latest auto dealers report.<\/p>\n

The decline occurred as Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined arms with now-President Donald Trump during the last election. Since then, he\u2019s stayed in the headlines by making hand gestures many interpreted as a Nazi salute, voicing support for far right-wing political parties in Europe, and most recently leading a team to eliminate large parts of the federal government.<\/p>\n

Those actions have caught the attention of potential Tesla customers in Colorado, which has transformed into a reliable blue state over the last two decades.<\/p>\n

Mandi Melozzi, a paraprofessional at a K-8 school in Jefferson County, said Musk\u2019s political turn played a major factor in her recent car search. Her family wanted an EV to replace their aging Toyota 4Runner, but she opted against a Tesla as a small form of protest. She ended up buying a Mazda CX90, a plug-in hybrid she liked for its ability to rely on gasoline for longer trips into the mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur only true voice in America anymore is our vote and where we decide to spend our money, she said. \u201dIt\u2019s the biggest way we can let our priorities and values be known, and so Tesla was never once on our radar.\u201c<\/p>\n

Melozzi isn\u2019t the only driver linking Tesla\u2019s brand image with Musk\u2019s personal politics. In the last few weeks, protests have erupted at Tesla dealerships in New York and California, and social media accounts have started promoting plans for far wider demonstrations. In Colorado, someone vandalized a Tesla dealership in Loveland by spray painting vehicles and scrawling the message \u201cNazi cars\u201d across the showroom windows, according to photos obtained by CPR News. The FBI is now helping local police investigate the incident.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Matthew Groves, the president of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, thinks politics are far from the biggest reason EV brands like Kia, Hyundai and Nissan have surged in Colorado.<\/p>\n

In the last few years, Tesla hasn\u2019t released any new vehicles other than the Cybertruck, a model with a price tag almost as steep as its angular roof. Meanwhile, Groves said other carmakers have launched a wide range of cheaper EV options, which Colorado dealerships made more attractive by bundling state and federal incentives into steep discounts.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are vastly more concerned with affordability than they are with politics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A tough road ahead for Colorado\u2019s booming EV market<\/div>\n

The last year, however, likely marked the high watermark of government support for EVs in Colorado.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 1, Colorado\u2019s EV tax credit shrunk from $5,000 to $3,500. The state continues to offer an additional $2,500 for vehicles with a manufacturer\u2019s retail price under $35,000. Xcel Energy, Colorado\u2019s largest utility company, also exhausted funding for its own income-qualified EV rebates in November, ending a program offering drivers $5,5000 off a new EV and $3,000 off a used model.<\/p>\n

Trump has also taken aim at several programs meant to encourage EV adoption nationwide. His administration has frozen funding for a federal program to help pay for high-powered chargers along highways. Before he officially entered the White House, his transition team signaled plans to end the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. Senate Republicans are now proposing a plan to follow through with the idea and impose a new $1,000 tax on EV purchases to fund road repairs.<\/p>\n

Those headwinds haven\u2019t forced Colorado dealerships to scrap their eye-popping EV deals just yet.<\/p>\n

Ed Olsen, the sales manager at Boulder Nissan, said his dealership continues to offer a $5 per month lease for Nissan Leaf thanks to additional incentives from Nissan, which plans to release a new version of the superaffordable electric car later this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any of those things go away, it will impact what we\u2019re able to sell these cars for,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully that doesn\u2019t happen, but who knows?\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2024, state drivers registered more than 5,600 Leafs, marking a more than 800% increase over the previous year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23416"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}