Nissan arguably created the modern American electric car market with its global EV sales leader the LEAF. While it was selling strong in modest numbers through 2019, it pioneered many of the EV features we take for granted today. What it didn’t do was lie. When it said range, it meant actual range.

Then Tesla came along late assembling an inexpensive kit car concept that went extremely heavy on future promises of luxury and very light on honesty, reliability or quality. They also allegedly played games with credit and loans to prop up earnings, while unabashedly and artificially doubling claimed battery range or corrupting the dashboard indicators. Their FSD turned out to be a scam, to boot, with almost nobody given a free trial agreeing to pay outrageous upcharge fees. Thus the over-cooked sales formulas hiding bad engineering were bound to crash eventually as the market of suckers dried up (or tragically was killed by fraud). So after a few years of sudden explosive (literally) sales that unfairly interfered with Nissan’s better vehicles, here we are.

Tesla sales declined even as overall sales of electric vehicles in the first 11 months of the year rose 25 percent globally, according to Rho Motion, a research firm.

The stark difference between Tesla EV sales numbers falling and all other brands leaping upward in 2024 has been truly remarkable to watch.