The deals also helped feed an aggressive price war led by market leader Tesla as it sought to defend its market share. That helped drive sales, but also drove down the value of used EVs.

Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds, said that with more people shopping around for deals due to the soaring cost of car ownership, the heavily discounted used models flooding onto the market would probably act as a “gateway” to EV ownership.

Average petrol prices in the US pushed past $4 a gallon this week for the first time since 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while the average purchase price for a new car is at near-record levels. Analysts attribute sluggish overall sales in the first quarter of this year in part to mounting concerns over affordability.

Against that backdrop, Duncan Aldred, president of GM’s North America business, told an automotive forum in New York this week that the Detroit car giant had seen “some peaking of interest” in EVs among buyers during the past month.

However, analysts said it was still too early to predict if high petrol prices would translate into a meaningful rise in sales of new EVs, noting persistent concerns among mainstream consumers about their ability to go on long journeys in a large country with inadequate charging infrastructure.

Manufacturers including Ford and GM have announced plans for a new generation of more affordable EVs due to be released over the next few years. In the meantime, said Caldwell, shoppers were likely to be surprised by how much used electric models had improved since the last time they shopped.

“In 2022, the last time we saw a gas price spike, they would have been looking at vehicles from around 2019, when EVs weren’t quite there yet,” she said.

Mike Murphy, co-founder of the EVs For All America pressure group, added that many of the obstacles to EV adoption were quietly being addressed, noting that the build-out of US charging infrastructure had accelerated last year despite the slowdown in EV sales.

“The dream of mass EV adoption here in America is not dead yet,” he said.

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