On today’s episode of Quick Charge we explore the uncertainty around the future of EV incentives, the roles different stakeholders will play in shaping that future, and our friend Stacy Noblet from energy consulting firm ICF stops by to share her take on what lies ahead.

We’ve got a couple of different articles and studies referenced in this forward-looking interview, and I’ve done my best to link to all of them below. If I missed one, let me know in the comments.

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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.

There’s a lot of context needed here.

As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.

Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.

For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:

You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.

There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.

This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.

Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:

It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.

Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.

However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.

First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.

However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.

Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.

Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.

Electrek’s Take

Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.

Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.

Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.

Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.

The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.

As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.

Today was supposed to be the day that Kia owners gain access to Tesla’s Supercharger network, but on Monday the brand announced that access would be delayed until spring. However, some owners have figured out a way to charge on Superchargers already.

It’s been a busy time for the North American EV industry’s transition to NACS, the charging standard originally advanced by Tesla and now standardized by SAE.

We’ve seen several brands added to the “coming soon” list, and even beyond that, VW and Honda have both made their own announcements that access is coming soon.

But the week was supposed to be even busier, with Kia having previously planned to roll out Supercharger access today, January 15th, according to an announcement the company made back in September. Unfortunately there was a delay, and Kia owners will have to wait another several weeks for official support.

But the wait might not be that long for all owners, if you’re willing to do something unsanctioned to get a charge.

Kia and Hyundai EVs are built on the same E-GMP platform, which is renowned for its DC charging prowess. And these brands were the first non-Tesla brands to ship cars with a native NACS port, instead of having to use an adapter.

Currently, we’ve heard plenty of reports that Hyundai EVs are charging on Tesla’s network no problem, despite that brand only just being added to Tesla’s “coming soon” page this week. And this apparently applies to Kia as well in certain instances, with a little trickery.

One Kia EV6 owner, who goes by Technically Jeff on Youtube, posted a video of himself charging his EV6 on a Tesla Supercharger today, the day that Kia was originally supposed to get access.

He doesn’t have a 2025 EV6 with native NACS port, and instead used a third party adapter from A2Z. This is not the official Kia-sanctioned adapter, as the official Kia adapter is not out yet. Manufacturers typically recommend that you use an official adapter, instead of a third party one.

In order to get the Supercharger to recognize his vehicle, he opened the Tesla app and listed his vehicle as an Ioniq 5, rather than an EV6. We’ve heard of other owners trying the same with Honda Prologues, listing them as Chevy Blazers (again, due to the car’s shared underpinnings) and being able to charge.

He preconditioned the battery by tricking his car into thinking he was going to another nearby CCS DC charger, so the battery was only partially conditioned and thus early fast charging speed wasn’t optimal.

Further, because he charged at a Tesla V3 cabinet, which isn’t capable of 800V, the EV6’s 800V charging system was limited. So he ended up peaking at around 100kW, which is roughly half of the best performance these cars can handle. Until Tesla rolls out more V4 cabinets, 800V vehicles can expect slower charging performance on Superchargers, even after gaining access.

The change allowing this seems to have been recent as well. Other owners have tried recently to charge Kias using the same method with no luck. But now we’re seeing this report that it is possible today, if you have a third-party adapter and don’t mind telling a little lie to Tesla.

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