This was the year of the fire sale. With the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit expiring at the end of September, buyers raced to get good deals on EVs and made sales numbers shoot up. Then, predictably, sales fell off a cliff at the end of the year, when those offers-you-can’t-refuse disappeared.
Now that a new year has arrived, the word might be “uncertain.” Tariffs and the loss of federal incentives have tossed a heavy dose of chaos into the EV industry, causing many automakers to reconsider their plans for what electric cars they’re going to build and where they’re going to make them. And yet, at the same time, some of the most anticipated new electric models we’ve seen in years are supposed to be coming to America next year. Here’s what to know.
The Budget EVs
Just as changes in federal policy threaten to make electric cars more expensive — at a moment when Americans are clearly tiring of out-of-control car prices — here comes a new batch of long-overdue affordable EVs. Among the most important is the Chevy Bolt, a fan favorite from the previous generation of electric vehicles that ended its first run in 2023. With the basic version starting at $29,000 for a car with 250-plus miles of range, the little Chevy might inspire a new legion of fans — perhaps one large enough to convince General Motors to extend what they’re calling a limited Bolt resurrection into a car that’s on sale for good.
The Nissan Leaf, another name from a bygone era, is also coming back to the States. The Leaf, you may recall, was arguably the car that started this electric era, hitting the market ahead of the much-more-beloved Tesla Model S. The second version of the Leaf that came out in the mid-2010s was a pretty darn good hatchback, but one that lasted too long without an update and paled in comparison to the better models that came along this decade. Nissan as a company has been adrift the past several years, but it built a winner in the new Leaf 3.0, an attractive small crossover set to arrive in 2026.
Next year also should see heel-draggers Toyota and Subaru finally coming to market with winning EVs. The uninspired Toyota bZ4x/Subaru Solterra, which the two Japanese brands developed together, had been their only pure EVs. In 2026, however, Subaru is set to launch the Outback EV and Toyota the electrified version of the C-HR small crossover, putting all-electric power into some of their well-known gasoline nameplates.
Going Off-Road
Battery-powered adventure vehicles make up some of the most exciting EVs for 2026. Perhaps the most-anticipated arrival is the Rivian R2, poised to be not only the model that brings that brand to the masses, with its $45,000 starting price, but also serve as the launchpad for Rivan’s aspirations in autonomous driving and AI. It’ll face new competition in the form of the Jeep Recon, that iconic brand’s first all-electric SUV, and of the Range Rover Electric, which seeks to win back some of the drivers who ditched their Range Rovers for the Rivian R1.
The electric pickup market, by comparison, has gone cold. Rivian, which launched its all-electric company with a pickup trick, isn’t planning a truck version for the smaller R2 platform. Ford, amidst yet another upheaval in its EV plans, is killing the all-electric version of the F-150 Lightning and plans to produce a 700-mile extended range hybrid in its place (though it says plans for the mid-sized EV truck due in 2027 will go on).
The great truck hope for EVs in 2026 is the much-awaited launch of Slate, the truly compact electric truck backed by Jeff Bezos, among others. Slate’s pitch is affordability via personalization: The bare-bones, doesn’t-even-have-power-windows version is supposed to start in the mid-$20,000s, on par with the cheapest new gasoline cars you can buy in America. Buyers can spend as much as they want to add bells and whistles.
Of the new high-end EVs coming to America, the most compelling may be the BMW i3. The last car to bear that name was the little urban future cube the German automaker sold in decent numbers back in the 2010s, despite that older vehicle having just 150 miles of range. The new i3 is a fully realized electrified version of the best-selling BMW 3 Series, one of the icons of the auto industry.
A Peculiar Market
Despite the arrival of new and affordable EVs, the industry still has a big affordability problem. Too many electric cars are still too expensive and not competitive price-wise with their gasoline counterparts. Meanwhile, Americans are getting fed up with out-of-control car prices.
A consequence of this, industry insiders say, could be that 2026 is the year of the used EV. Tons of electric cars that were leased under very favorable terms during the Biden years will be coming back to dealerships as those leases end, ready to become very affordable used cars. With batteries having markedly improved since the 2010s, those three-year-old electric cars should have decent driving ranges to go with their low sticker prices.
The other big question mark is the promise of the autonomous age. Tesla, still the EV market leader in America, hasn’t offered an entirely new one since the disastrous launch of the Cybertruck. This year, though, Elon Musk says he will start building Cybercab, the supposedly fully autonomous car that will never be driven by its human occupants. Maybe it will upend the entire automotive industry as drivers say goodbye to the act of driving. Or maybe, like most Tesla endeavors, it will come in behind schedule and not work quite as well as Musk promises.
