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Surprise: Tesla Isn't The Only EV Generating Social Media Buzz

It’s hard to have a conversation about electric vehicles without Tesla coming up.

After all, the brand was one of the first battery electric vehicles on the market in 2003, and California highways are now absolutely lousy with them.

But Tesla is by no means the only one making a splash on social media. With all due respect to Elon Musk, Rerev decided to turn the spotlight on some other EV companies that seem to be in the shadows.

So, which cars and car brands that are not Tesla are currently loved by social media?

After monitoring TikTok and Instagram hashtags as well as Google searches for certain brands and models, Rerev found out which electric vehicle models are being talked about and searched for the most. The company then turned this data into a rating system to find the most-hyped.

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Surprisingly -- or maybe not? -- the company found that BMW is the most popular electric car brand online, with 350 million (and counting) engagements.

That could be in part due to the company’s Super Bowl spot featuring  Arnold Schwarzenegger, which generated lots of buzz before, during and after the game. 

The BMW iX is the most popular EV at 230 million engagements, and is the most-hyped electric vehicle on both Instagram and TikTok, per Rerev.

This $85,000 SUV got posted about on Facebook 39,300 times, and on Instagram 686,557 times. It also was searched on Google 172,000 times, and videos about it were viewed on TikTok 237,300,000 times.

Another BMW Group brand, Mini, is the most affordable electric vehicle making a splash on social media at $34,000, according to Rerev.

The Mercedes-Maybach EQS is the least popular EV, with 2,311 engagements. The $102,310 SUV was posted about on Instagram only 2,219 times and searched for on Google 40 times, while TikTok videos about it only had 52 views.

The Nissan Leaf (with 576,000 searches) is the most-searched-for electric car on Google, per Rerev, which collected data for Google search keywords for one month. In a close second is the Kia EV6, with 562,000 searches, followed by Porsche Taycan, with 556,000 searches.

Incidentally, TikTok is the most popular social media platform for EV engagement. Total views for EV videos on TikTok scored over 1 billion views. 

EV models’ popularity varied between different online platforms.  More results of Rerev's study can be found here.  

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