U.S. BEV Sales ‘May Be on a Growth Track,’ Says EV Expert Loren McDonald

EV expert Loren McDonald, CEO and Chief Analyst at Chargeonomics, reported battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales in the United States showed a growth trend in May 2026.

On June 3, 2026, McDonald posted the following to his Linkedin account:

“After two down quarters of US BEV sales due to consumers pulling forward their purchases and leases — sales may be on a growth track. As I do every month, I track sales of BEV models for which the automakers publicly report sales by BEV model. These include Toyota/Lexus, Subaru, Honda/Acura, Ford, and Hyundai/Kia/Genesis. Volvo stopped reporting monthly sales a few months ago. When analyzing the 19 BEV models with reported sales in May, MoM sales was up 21.9%.

YoY sales for these models was up 11.1%. Because the 19 models include 4 new Toyota and Subaru models available starting in March/April, and two discontinued models (Acura ZDX and Ford F-150 Lightning) — the numbers don’t reveal how existing models are actually performing. So the light blue line in the chart excludes the recently introduced models and the two discontinued models. In this case, the remaining 13 models were still up 9.7% MoM and 5.9% YoY.

So while these 19/13 models may or may not reflect all of the BEV models, it portends that the EV market is back on track due to three factors: 1) Working through the pull-through purchases/leases in Q3; 2) Rising gas prices; and 3) The current and upcoming introduction of more than 2 dozen new BEV models to the US market. But perhaps the thing that stands out most to me, is that it looks like the US BEV market is back on a growth trajectory, after surpassing the year-ago May pre-end-of-tax credit huge bump in sales.

What could dampen this apparent growth trend is if the top two BEV-selling automakers — Tesla and GM — have a weak Q2, then overall sales could be flat or down slightly. We’ll have the answer in July …”

Loren McDonald Joins ChargeMate as a Business Advisor, Investor, and Collaboration Partner

On May 14, 2026, McDonald announced he joined ChargeMate as a business advisor, investor, and collaboration partner. McDonald, CEO and Chief Analyst of Chargeonomics and a longtime expert in EV charging infrastructure, will work with ChargeMate’s leadership team on product innovation, strategic partnerships, industry research, data initiatives, and thought leadership.

McDonald said he was attracted to ChargeMate because the company focuses on improving successful charging sessions and the real-world driver experience rather than relying solely on traditional uptime metrics. He has long highlighted the disconnect between the 95% uptime often reported by charge point operators (CPOs) and the lower charging success rates many EV drivers actually experience.

ChargeMate’s AI-powered platform helps charging providers improve reliability and customer support. According to the company, its technology has reduced support call volumes by 48%, increased charging visit success rates by 5.5 percentage points for a major national CPO, enabled support teams to assist two to three times more drivers, and improved overall driver satisfaction.

ChargeMate CEO and co-founder Bradford Crist said McDonald’s expertise in charging reliability, market analysis, and industry trends aligns closely with the company’s mission. Crist noted that McDonald has already contributed ideas for new business opportunities and product offerings.

McDonald, who previously served as chief analyst at Paren and founded EVAdoption, said ChargeMate is helping advance what he calls “Charging 2.0” by focusing on driver experience, customer loyalty, and station economics. He emphasized that the company’s AI chat and voice support tools are already improving charging success rates while significantly reducing support costs.

The appointment underscores ChargeMate’s efforts to expand its role in the EV charging sector as reliability, customer support, and operational intelligence become increasingly important amid growing EV adoption.