Sam Boughedda

Citi analyst Itay Michaeli told analysts in a note Friday that Tesla (NASDAQ:) continues to dominate EV “mindshare,” but the trend is declining.

In a note focused on electric vehicles and “mindshare,” which is a tracker based on Citi’s latest analysis of web-traffic data across various EV brands/products through the end of May, Michaeli said traditional market share metrics don’t currently paint a complete picture due to numerous constraints.

However, by analyzing web-traffic data, the firm’s goal is to build a “mindshare” tracker as a potential leading indicator of future EV volume share.

Michaeli wrote that recent website traffic data (measuring the total visits) from several EV carmakers/brands indicates a slight slowdown in aggregate traffic. May was at around 2% below peak levels. Though the decline isn’t severe and comes off very strong growth in recent years, the data does suggest that macro/inflation pressures could be weighing a bit on consumer engagement. Looking at the May data across individual companies (in comparison to Sept ’21-Feb’22), we saw very mixed outcomes across the board.”

Citi’s mindshare tracker shows that Tesla continues to dominate mindshare, but mass-market/lower-priced luxury players (i.e., Hyundai, Kia, VW) and companies launching new products fared better than some of the premium players.

Although the data may be mixed, we generally consider margins in the U.S. market below $60k+ as more vulnerable to macro-pressures, given how much capacity is added. The market has a small size, with only several hundred thousands units. But gas prices may be able to offset this by luxury EV adoption.