The start of the year is typically slow for car sales in Colorado.

It’s cold. Icy. And people are busy traveling to the mountains.

But so far this year, a surge of people bought cars as President Donald Trump placed tariffs on imports and foreign automakers and as Republican lawmakers threatened to cut federal electric vehicle tax credits.

New vehicle registrations in Colorado jumped more than 10% from January through March compared to the same period last year, according to a new quarterly outlook report from the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.

State registrations were above the national average of 4.2% for the first quarter of 2025, the report said.

As economic uncertainty is hitting consumers during a typically slow period, Colorado Automobile Dealers Association CEO Matthew Groves said he expected the market to “tank” a bit.

But the opposite happened.

“The threat of tariffs, rather than the tariffs themselves, actually turned out to be a huge boon,” Groves said.

Colorado business confidence falls dramatically as Trump policies spur ‘shock’ of uncertainty

Trump announced 25% tariffs on cars in March. The tariffs for completed cars took effect April 3 and tariffs for auto parts have been set to start 30 days later.

The weekend before tariffs went into place in April, Groves said some dealerships saw business spike by 150% as customers were wanting to finalize their purchases before any price hikes kicked in, clearing out a lot of existing inventory.

The boon isn’t expected to last as tariffs have been implemented, yet there’s still a lot of uncertainty on whether Trump will add more taxes on more imports from foreign countries or walk back on his trade negotiations.

Trump told reporters earlier this week he’s considering temporarily halting his 25% tariffs on the auto industry and giving carmakers more time to move their productions to the U.S., though it’s not clear how long a pause would last.

The recent sales boost “kept us alive for a little while,” Groves said.

Colorado Auto Show kicks off during an uncertain time

The Colorado Auto Show at the Colorado Convention Center, the annual show hosted by the trade association showcasing vehicles from both domestic and foreign carmakers, will be in town between Thursday and Sunday.

It’ll feature major manufacturers such as Subaru, Nissan, Cadillac and Italian luxury brands like Ferrari expanded their booths this year.

But the show isn’t about making sales, rather showing off the newest models and answering questions in a lower pressure environment.

At Ford’s display at the auto show, they’re prepared for curious customers concerned about how tariffs are affecting car prices.

“That’s a question that comes up at every auto show across the nation right now,” said Sean Sachdeva, Ford regional manager in the Denver region.

The U.S.-based car manufacturer will be promoting its “From America, For America” employee pricing promotion, selling cars to the general public at employee-discount costs until June.

While tariffs are sparking fears of inflation, Ford is dropping its price tags — for now. But most of the cars it’s selling from its inventory have already been manufactured before tariffs were placed.

“Business has been growing pretty significantly during the first quarter for Ford and especially here in the Denver region,” said Sachdeva.

“We’re in a really good stock level right now across our dealer network to be able to meet the demand for the near future without having some of the pricing impacts that you’re hearing elsewhere,” he added.

The Colorado Auto Outlook report forecasts if tariffs are scaled but are kept higher than in past years, then car prices may rise up to 5%. Sales in the state could drop to 218,000 units, which would be down nearly 2% from 2024.

If a trade war escalates, triggering a recession, the report said prices could surge to 10% this year, causing annual sales to drop nearly 8%.

For its more positive forecast in a scenario where tariffs would be mostly removed, the report said Colorado could see about 230,000 sales, up 4% from the year before.

“We continue to assess what potential impacts are but right now we’ve been able to contain it and that’s been part of our commitment to our customers through June 2,” Sachdeva at Ford said. 

How much do Coloradans buy from foreign countries?

Colorado is uniquely positioned due to its high concentration of electric vehicles, many of which are made by U.S. carmakers such as General Motors and Tesla.

Still, car parts are shipped from all over the world and vehicles are almost never completely made within one country, Groves said.

“The domestic manufacturers have components from outside of the country and the foreign manufacturers have domestic components in manufacturing,” he explained.

American companies General Motors and Ford have both dropped their U.S. contents over the last decade from around 65% to 54%, according to the Made in America auto index. Meanwhile foreign companies like Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen have been boosting their U.S. presence since 2015.

Honda used about 63% of components from the U.S. for its cars, outpacing GM and Ford.

More than 35% of the car market share in Colorado is domestic, according to the state’s auto dealer association. Nearly 12% are made by European brands. And more than half come from automakers based in Asia.

“You’ll see a higher penetration of pickup trucks like Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram,” Groves said. “And because of the electric element, General Motors and Nissan (a Japanese carmaker with factories in Tennessee and Mississippi) are both doing very well.”

Colorado and California are the only two states where EVs make up at least 20% of the market share.

While EV sales soared, with some brands seeing increases of more than 100%, Tesla lost market share, attributing it to the rise of Tesla CEO’s Elon Musk in politics and an “aging product lineup,” according to the report.

Tesla’s share of the EV market in Colorado fell from 36% last year to 22% this year.

Second arrest made in string of Loveland Tesla attempted arsons

There’s been a violent backlash on Tesla cars, showrooms and charging stations since Musk became an advisor to Trump and has led efforts to cut federal spending and firing thousands of government employees with the Department of Government Efficiency.

In Colorado, there’s been a string of attacks on Tesla in Loveland involving Molotov cocktails hitting Tesla cars and the words “Nazi cars” spray-painted on a dealership building. In Lakewood, a suspect allegedly carved a swastika on a Tesla Cybertruck parked outside the Colorado Mills mall.

Meanwhile, state car registrations for the fully-electric Nissan Leaf manufactured in Mississippi surged nearly 468% within a year.

Nissan overtook Tesla as the top EV car seller in Colorado quickly.

In the first quarter of last year, Colorado saw more than 580 Nissan registrations. So far in 2025, Nissan had more than 2,750 registrations and now has a quarter of the market share.

“One of the reasons that Nissan and Chevrolet are doing very well in the EV field is because they make American-made EVs that are a little bit smaller and more affordable,” Groves said.

And state and federal tax credits also helped boost sales, he added.