Interesting thing about auto sales number, they are down for gasoline cars, but WAY up for EVs and hybrids.
In the first 4 months of 2016, 40,992 EV/PHEVs were sold. In 2017 that number jumped to 54,387, up over 33%. That trend will get a big boost later this year with the next generation Nissan Leaf and the hotly desired Tesla Model 3. The M3 has 400,000 people who shelled out $1000 just to reserve it. While Tesla will not deliver on that back log of demand until 2018, maybe 2019, 400,000 cars is roughly the amount of EVs sold by all other auto makers and Tesla in the last three years.
Depending on who you believe, Tesla will deliver 10-30K Model 3s this year, which means a roughly 7%-20% additional cars sold. So, the 2017 EV/PHEV market could be up 40%-53% over 2016.
Add to this similar growth in the solar/wind/battery markets and you get a STARK contrast between the economy Trump likes and promotes, and the economy Trump and conservatives hate and deride.
Yes, I realize that these numbers are a tiny fraction of the number of gas cars sold, even in bad years, but compare the EV/ICE market to the PC/Mini/Mainframe market around 1980-1983.
This is what economists call the beginning of an “S curve” and the marketing droids call “a paradigm-shift"
Another point folks like to mention is that EVs are still way too expensive for 90% of consumers. True, but do check out the used markets. Dealers are clueless about pricing used EVs, so there are good deals to be had for used Nissan Leaves, Chevy Volts and Kia Souls.
UPDATE: I found somw nice graphs of PC sales compared to iPhone, iPad and Mac sales.