It's been nothing short of a fever for Tesla's new Model 3 sedan, with the company already topping 325,000 preorders since unveiling the vehicle on March 31.
As eye-opening as those numbers have been thus far, they are not indicative of the electric vehicle market as a whole.
As a Los Angeles Times story Monday reveals, if you look at the overall picture, electric car sales are barely making a dent in the United States' auto industry.
The publication cites an Electric Drive Transportation Association report about pure EVs, including Tesla's, but not counting hybrids, accounting for 71,064 of all vehicles sold in the country last year. That amounts to just 0.4 percent of the record-setting 17.4 million cars sold in 2015. Not great.
Even if you were to add the hybrids to the amount of EVs sold in the U.S. last year, they'd combine to account for 2.9 percent of the overall market, according to EDTA data. What should be of more concern to automakers producing EVs and hybrids is that 2.9 percent clip in 2015 is actually down from the 3.5 percent of overall U.S. car purchases recorded in 2014.
That being said, the EDTA didn't sound too alarmed when speaking with the L.A. Times.
"We have established a good foothold in the market," president of the group Genevieve Cullen said. "All the major automakers are investing in some form of electrification."
That's certainly a valid point, as several automakers, such as General Motors, Nissan, BMW and Mercedes-Benz produce EVs, with several more putting out some type of hybrid.
Cullen said that it's up to automakers to continue to show customers improvements in batteries and the overall technology to drive those numbers up.
"People are perhaps cautious in adapting to new models of transportation," Cullen said, "and it's our job to demonstrate how it works."
Perhaps Tesla's emergence and popularity can help with that — not to mention, attaching a more affordable $35,000 price tag to its Model 3.
"A week ago, we started taking reservations for Model 3, and the excitement has been incredible," Tesla wrote in a blog post last Thursday. "We've now received more than 325,000 reservations, which corresponds to about $14 billion in implied future sales, making this the single biggest one-week launch of any product ever. This interest has spread completely organically. Unlike other major product launches, we haven't advertised or paid for any endorsements."
What's truly remarkable about the Model 3's response is it's a vehicle that's expected to launch in 2017, making the demand for it already quite impressive.
