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Transportation United States Power

Californians Have Bought More Than 1.5 Million Electric Vehicles (arstechnica.com) 128

Posted by BeauHD from the setting-the-bar dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: California is far and away the country's largest adopter of plug-in electric vehicles. Because of the state's ability to regulate its own air quality and spurred on by a large economy and plenty of affluent residents, the EV has gained plenty of traction in the Golden State. So much so that last month, California met its goal of having more than 1.5 million clean vehicles on the road two years ahead of schedule. California's Air Resources Board (CARB) began its Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program in 1990 with the intent of ameliorating the state's severe smog problem. By the early years of this century, air quality had improved to the point where CARB could begin using the ZEV regulations to help drive down climate emissions. It has accomplished that with goals that are more ambitious than the ones adopted by the US Environmental Protection Agency at the federal level and despite political interference from the previous administration, which wanted pollution to continue almost unabated.

A number of other states -- Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington -- have adopted CARB's ZEV program within their own borders. But none are as far down the road to EV adoption; in the first three months of this year, 21.1 percent of all new light-duty vehicles bought in California were zero-emissions vehicles. That's a 153-percent increase year on year, according to the nonprofit Veloz. Battery EVs made up the vast majority, with 95,946 sold. Unsurprisingly, Tesla was most well-represented on the sales list, with the Model Y accounting for 33,205 units by itself. (The Model 3 was next, at 19,989 sold in Q1 2023.) BMW was the best of the rest of the OEMs in total sales numbers thanks to healthy plug-in hybrid EV sales.

Los Angeles County was responsible for the highest number of new EVs added to the roads, with 36,670 registered in Q1. Orange County was next, at 15,289 new ZEVs registered, followed by Santa Clara County (11,428 new ZEVs registered). Cumulatively, that brings California to 1,523,966 ZEVs deployed by the end of Q1 2023; for context, there were just 773 ZEVs in total sold before 2011. The state had hoped to reach that milestone by the end of 2025. More than two-thirds of those 1.5 million ZEVs are BEVS -- 1,051,456, according to the California Energy Commission, with most of the remaining cars being plug-in hybrid EVs. The data shows that the hydrogen fuel cell revolution is not really accelerating, though -- only 15,432 have been registered in the state.
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Californians Have Bought More Than 1.5 Million Electric Vehicles More

Californians Have Bought More Than 1.5 Million Electric Vehicles

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  • Gotta start somewhere; California seems like a good place. They can work out the details of large-scale adoption.

    • I got federal tax rebates from my plug-in hybrid, 2020. CA didn't provide any. So at the state level it's not bribing people. My guess is that they're not compensating for population, so being the most populous state of course it has the most EVs. Tying this to California seems odd. I would like to see per-capita numbers instead though.

      • Re:Gotta start somewhere (Score:5, Informative)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Monday April 24, 2023 @08:13PM (#63474158)

        States with the most electric vehicles registered per 100,000 people:

        California (5,694)
        Washington (4,279)
        Oregon (4,013)
        Vermont (3,470)
        Hawaii (3,295)
        Colorado (2,868)
        Maryland (2,817)
        Massachusetts (2,742)
        Arizona (2,589)
        Virginia (2,580)

        https://www.usnews.com/news/be... [usnews.com]

        • For a little context...

          California has over 28 million registered operating vehicles

          • Your context is missing context... how does that help clarify anything in the parent's statement?

      • I got federal tax rebates from my plug-in hybrid, 2020. CA didn't provide any. So at the state level it's not bribing people. My guess is that they're not compensating for population, so being the most populous state of course it has the most EVs. Tying this to California seems odd. I would like to see per-capita numbers instead though.

        I bought a PHEV in California in 2021. I got the $7.5k federal credit and a $1.5k state rebate (directly to the dealer). I didn't income qualify for the $1k CVRP (which increases to $6.5k for low-income people) or the local utility $1k rebate or the $550 for a home charging station, but I did get the carpool sticker. For most BEVs, there is an additional $1k for the CVRP and $500 for the local utility rebate. California has not been skimpy on EV incentives.

        • I must have forgotten it. Not really anxious to pull out old tax returns. Definitely there was no utility incentive, and I can't get a home charging station which seems pointless anyway since I can plug it into the wall. I skipped the carpool sticker.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        I got federal tax rebates from my plug-in hybrid, 2020. CA didn't provide any. So at the state level it's not bribing people.

        Time is money, so they actually are, at least for a little while longer, in the form of carpool lane stickers. That program used to be a good enough reason by itself for some people to buy an EV, at least up until they got so many EVs in the carpool lanes that they could no longer meet the federal carpool lane speed requirements, and started converting them all to toll-based express lanes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      EV's have always been popular with Silly Valley Tech Bros who can easily afford them.

      What I'm personally waiting for is a reasonably priced long-range EV. A vehicle with a 300-mile range that costs $30,000 would work, but it seems that most of them still cost at least $10,000 more than that if you want that kind of range.

      • Re:Gotta start somewhere (Score:5, Informative)

        by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Monday April 24, 2023 @09:49PM (#63474270)

        EV's have always been popular with Silly Valley Tech Bros who can easily afford them.

        What I'm personally waiting for is a reasonably priced long-range EV. A vehicle with a 300-mile range that costs $30,000 would work, but it seems that most of them still cost at least $10,000 more than that if you want that kind of range.

        The following EVs aren't exactly at your specs, but they're close: Chevy Bolt, $25.6k, 259 miles. Hyundai Kona, $33.5k, 258 miles. Not quite 300 miles, but the base model Tesla and competitors aren't either. The Bolt qualifies for the $7.5k federal credit and maybe state and local rebates, which means it would only cost $18k and is cheaper than most entry-level gas sub-compacts. If you income qualify in California, you would get another $7.5k state rebate, bringing the cost down to around $10.5k. I think that's pretty affordable. You may be wary of the range, but cost would not be an issue.

        • I wonder if anybody managed to stack all the credits like that. It's a maze of conditions and deadlines that limit getting a big rebate on a cheap car, or if you have a decent income, where it was built, etc etc. I would be surprised if anybody ended up getting a new EV for $10.5K, or even twice that.

          • Burning coal is worse than burning petrol.

            Rich Californians buy electric cars because they can then use the car pool lanes on the freeway. Worth every penny.

            • Almost no electricity in California is from coal: https://app.electricitymaps.co... [electricitymaps.com]

            • Actually it comes from solar which is why they were asked not to charge their cars overnight last year.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                California is one of those rare areas on the planet where both wind and solar are commercially viable. As a point of comparison, California invested something like 1/10th into wind and solar compared to Germany, and is getting at least three times the electricity.

                With weather-related intermittent power sources like wind and solar, your location is probably the single most important factor in what's viable. Most of the landmass on the planet that is populated, neither wind nor solar are viable. US is excepti

            • Burning coal is worse than burning petrol.

              Agreed, which is why California uses almost zero coal. The only coal power (about 3% of our use in 2021) was from imports from other states that still use coal.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Yes, but not in US. There was a major case of this happening in China a bit earlier, where corona-induced slump in sales and lack of rebound due to poor economy caused several regional governments to issue massive stacking credits on top of central government ones. There was also a significant pullout of foreign partners out of those 50-50 deals that international car companies need to enter the market, so a lot of these joint ventures ended undercapitalized and conducting effectively fire sales of massive

        • The bolt may be rated at 259 miles, but you take a drive like that.
          I dare you

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by r0nc0 ( 566295 )
            I did - I drove it up to Redding from San Francisco. No problem with the range - it was accurate. The issue was with the time to re-charge since the Bolt is limited to 50kwh charging rates.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by boskone ( 234014 )

          The model Y long range (330 miles) is like 45 - 7,500 federal tax credit.

          So for 38, that's a lot of car nowadays. There are not so many cars at 30k anymore, though good job finding some.

        • and the bolt is being discontinued

          https://www.npr.org/2023/04/26... [npr.org]

      • You could buy a used Model 3 and get that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tragedy ( 27079 )

        Are you allowing for adjustment for inflation while you're waiting? For example, if you set the $30,000 goal ten years ago, that would be equivalent to $38,870 today. In other words, if it costs $30,000 today, it would have been a $23,154 car ten years ago. So, the prices might drop relative to inflation, but never actually go down in raw numbers.

      • The technology to make batteries that do that doesn't exist outside of "it'll change the world"

    • People think electric vehicles are still futuristic, I wonder if they know that the Model Y is tracking to become the world's best-selling car this year or next. Hasn't happened yet, but in 2022 it was in 4th place (behind the Corolla, F-Series, and Rav4) after skyrocketing up by 88% from 2021.

      https://www.notateslaapp.com/n... [notateslaapp.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Because in current economic climate, average people cannot afford cars nearly as much as they could in the past.

        While rich still have enough income to maintain their purchasing levels.

        • It has been a bad few years with Covid, but I think it will return to being more like before. The prices of EVs in particular are dropping like a rock.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Except that there's not much left to drop. We're seeing a massive demand slum globally in the wake of recession driven by demographic crisis in most developed and many developing countries, coupled with covid money printing. Many of the vehicular discounts have in fact been seen across the world, with PRC of all places leading the pack. We've seen up to 60% discounts in China on new cars, because after covid there are massive unsold fleets coupled with lack of demand.

            There much of demand was generated by la

    • That's not going to happen, considering the barrier to widescale adoption is the same as is for ICE. Where the fuck are we going to put them? Building parking lots and streets bigger makes traffic worse and spreads destinations out farther. We need public transportation at scale. We don't need cars at scale, regardless of how they're powered.

  • BMW was the best of the rest of the OEMs in total sales numbers thanks to healthy plug-in hybrid EV sales.

    Do they count only when they plug in, rather than when they use their engines?

    • I believe they count plug-ins because depending on battery size and daily mileage needs plug-ins can offer an almost BEV like experience. I wish I had bought a plug-in instead of a regular hybrid. Probably would've never needed to run the ICE except for when the ICE runs to ensure gas doesn't get too old.

      • I believe they count plug-ins because depending on battery size and daily mileage needs plug-ins can offer an almost BEV like experience.

        Yes, I had a friend who said that they buy gas for their plug-in hybrid roughly once a year.

        • For me, it's about once a month. At the height of the pandemic, I was getting 3 months on a tank.

          But I've only got about a 20 mile electric range, that's enough unless I'm going across town.

          It's great as a transitional car, I'm still going full electric next time. And the way this car is holding up, that's probably several years away.

          • Yes, I expect it depends on whether you take trips, or just use it for short commutes and grocery runs.

            When I got the Tesla, I was thinking, no range worries, we'll use my wife's car if we take thousand mile trips, and we won't need charge stops. Turns out, though, I discovered I actually like the planned regular stops on long trips. We preferentially use the Tesla on longer trips, and my wife's car for just small bopping around town.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      For people who use them correctly, they're great, providing emissions-free well over 80% of all driving in most cases. Unfortunately studies have shown that many plug-in hybrid owners never plug them in. This has been particularly a problem for corporate fleet vehicles, where tax credits pushed the PHEVs, but drivers get reimbursed for gas but not electricity if they charge at home, so they never do. There are also many PHEV owners who just view them as fancy hybrids and don't bother plugging them in.

      The

      • I wonder how many PHEV owners who never plug just don't have any convenient place to charge because they aren't homeowners? (Whatever the reason, it seems like they should have just gone with a mild hybrid instead of purchasing and dragging around hundreds of lbs of batteries).

        • It's hard to find a mild hybrid in the USA. Most of them are either full-hybrid but non plug-in, or plug-in. They have many more mild hybrid options in other countries.

          Non-plug-in full hybrids should never have existed, what a waste.

        • Yeah it'd be pretty dumb to buy one if you can't charge it at home. I can't, so I'm sticking with ICE for now.

          But I had a PHEV Volvo rental and found it a bit annoying to deal with. It's probably fine if you only go homework and plug in at the end of the day. But having to look for and mess with chargers at every stop I made just to keep the battery topped up was a pain in the ass and despite mostly making trips within EV-only range, at the end of the rental I saved barely anything over a reasonably efficie

      • I posted this somewhere else, but electricity prices in California are insane. In fact they are so high that buying gasoline might be cheaper than charging at home. The purchases may have been made for the PHEV over the hybrid because it was cheaper after the incentives but knowing already that plugging-in doesn't make sense in California

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by crow ( 16139 )

          Massachusetts electricity prices are similar. EVs are still a huge win here. My Model 3 gets about 4 miles per kWh so if electricity is .22/kWh and gas is $3.50/gallon, then that's the same price as a car getting 63mpg.

          Check my math: 3.50 / (.22 / 4)

          Even if it's only 3 miles per kWh, that's over 47mpg equivalent.

          But your point is valid in that the psychology of plugging in a PHEV in California might be to skip it due to the electricity costs, even if the math says otherwise.

        • In fact they are so high that buying gasoline might be cheaper than charging at home.

          Even at our incredibly high electric rates, it's still cheaper to plug in at home, and that's assuming you don't switch to an overnight charging plan that has cheaper rates. And even looking at the cheapest gas I could find in California:

          $0.43/kwh at 4 miles/kwh gets $0.108/mi, vs.$3.89/gal at 35mpg gets $0.111/mi. And this is a best case in favor of gas.

    • My mom and a friend both have PHEVs, and they both put in a tank about twice a year. Most people drive their car locally 98% of the time, and take a few longer trips here and there.

      I think it's a transitory technology, but still a very effective one at reducing gas usage.

  • Tracks with high median income (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Monday April 24, 2023 @08:18PM (#63474162)

    Most of the top states for EV sales track with median income which is natural, EV's are still in luxury car price ranges, those same states likely also had high sales of Lexus, MB, Cadillac, etc.

    If the planned output of batteries does come online in the next 5-8ish years then EV's can hit price parity with ICE and the market will really start to shift.

    • There are very affordable EVs now. Anyone buying a new Civic can get an EV or plug-in hybrid Anyone buying an Acura certainly can and save some money. Anyone driving a tricked out Ford F150 that they use to commute to work and who is bitching about how expensive EVs are is a hypocrite.

      • An Ioniq 5 starts at $42k
        Model 3 $40k
        Model Y $46k
        F150 Lighting starts $40k

        And thats before any options, range packs etc

        A 2023 Civic still starts at $25k to say nothing of recently used.

        Yes, this is all changing quickly, especially as more used EV's hit the market and the track record for used EV reveals itself more (whereas the Civic has a decades long superp track record).

        For the middle to upper middle class, yes, they can consider an EV fairly, for sure, they can already consider cars north of $40k but fo

        • Re:Tracks with high median income (Score:4, Informative)

          by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Monday April 24, 2023 @10:10PM (#63474292)

          You listed two Teslas and Ioniq, those are top end luxury EVs. And you probably haven't seen the $90K F150s :-)
          Chevy Bolt, $26K, Nissan Leaf, $28K, Kia plugin hybrid, $27K, Subaru Crosstrek, $25K.

          Yeah, they sound more expensive than they used to be - but all auto prices have zoomed in the last couple of years.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            In Europe we have even more affordable options. VW has been doing some aggressive offers on its ID.3 range, and we have Chinese brands like MG that offer really good value for money and very nice cars.

        • The average new car costs almost $50k so all the EVs you listed are below that: https://www.caranddriver.com/n... [caranddriver.com]

        • > F150 Lighting starts $40k

          And the plain old non-electric F-series starts at $34K for the base trim and can easily be configured past $100K, well into Model S, Supra, and M3 territory. That same dinosaur-burning F-series is, and has for many years been, the best selling "car" in the US for more years I can remember. This "working class hero" crap you're selling is... well... a load of steaming dingos' kidneys..

        • F150 Lighting starts $40k

          Try $60k. At $40k I might switch to a lightning, and I'm not even a truck guy.

      • Tell you what, get me a 2-seater sports car EV, that looks cool, has performance...doens't resemble a family car....and price it maybe at least at base Corvette price and we'll talk.

        Till then, not interested.

        I don't want a family truckster, give me something FUN to drive and enjoy.

        Oh and I need range too...

  • A race? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quantum gravity ( 2576857 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @04:49AM (#63474686)
    In California ZEVs sales has reached 18.8% in 2022. Electric cars sales in the EU account for 34.7% of the sales 2022, where 17.8% are BEVs. Norway, not part the EU and a large oil producer, is the world leader with 87.8% (64% BEVs) electric car sales. The Norwegian government has a requirement that all cars sold in 2025 must be ZEVs. The EU and California has a requirement that 100% of new cars be ZEVs by 2035. The US has a goal of 50% for sales of cars by 2030, and some new proposal for 67% by 2032. Meanwhile the largest market for electric cars, in absolute numbers, is China. So it is almost like a race between the US, EU and China.

  • Wow, what a load of blatantly partisan garbage (Score:4, Informative)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @06:18AM (#63474810)
    "California is great, and Trump is a bad person who wants pollution!"

    Horseshit.

    • This is the most hilarious "no shit Sherlock" post I've read in a while:

      • Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate change accords.
      • Trump rolled back dozens of oil and gas regulations that combatted greenhouse gases
      • Trump torpedoed car gas milage standards
      • Trump campaigned on bringing coal back as a power generation source
      • Trump allowed oil drilling and mining in national parks and wildlife refugees
      • Trump limited bodies of water covered by the clean water act,

      Trump clearly wants pollution, if money can be made from

    • Trump is a bad person..

      Check:

      Trump: "If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her."

      ...who wants pollution!

      Check:

      Trump: “We Have Ended the War on Beautiful, Clean Coal”

  • I don't quite get this since, in California, electricity is so expensive that it's actually cheaper to use gas. There are some posts talking about how PHEVs aren't actually ever plugged. Likely because electricity is so expensive.
    • I don't live in California, so I had to look up prices on gas buddy and elsewhere, but here is what I can tell:
      Palo Alto, CA:
      Ave gas price = $4.69/gal / 30 mpg = $0.16/mile
      Ave elec price = $0.19/kwh / 3.5 mi per kWh = $0.05/mile

      Even in the most expensive areas of CA, they have off-peak tariffs (or solar panels on their roof) that can make charging your car even more affordable. Even in San Diego, where the average electric rate is $0.36/kwh, that is still $0.10/mile.

      • Biggest issue going forward, is the for-profit power companies in the state (basically the entire state) have gotten together a proposal that effectively kills rooftop solar. Fixed fees, reduced payment for power generated, etc, makes the break even point on purchasing solar unattractive now, and raises electric rates significantly for most people. The cost of batteries for homes with solar makes it even worse. You'd probably never recover the cost during the life of the batteries. Expect the cost per m

      • I'm pretty sure you will pay much more for the electricity in California. Last time we had this discussion, I came up with $0.40/kwh. Based on this chart, $0.26 is the best you can do. https://www.pge.com/en_US/resi... [pge.com]

        But I guess you are right that you are still ahead until electricity hits $0.60/kwh

  • Taxpayers in California and all of USA who could not afford EVs have subsidized billions of dollars of EVs for well-to-do Californians, with no discernible effect whatsoever on global warming or world GHG levels.

  • We in California have teh highest gas taxes, driving a BEV allows for HOV access, and there are zero issues with public charging. Having a BEV is a benefit. I drove to to work in half the time using the HOV lane.

    Good luck getting people in Texas to adopt.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ksw_92 ( 5249207 )

      I'll just leave this LA Times editorial here: https://www.latimes.com/opinio... [latimes.com]

      There are plenty of problems with public charging infrastructure, even in EV-friendly California. It doesn't affect the affluent as much because they generally have a garage that can have a Level 2 charger installed.

      If most of your driving is confined to, say the SoCal metro-plex or Bay Area and you can charge at home every night you're not nearly as inconvenienced as an apartment-dweller that has to compete for a public charger.

    • ...and there are zero issues with public charging.

      As an EV user in California, I nearly spit out my coffee all over my screen reading that.

    • Good luck getting people in Texas to adopt.

      Adoption is more of an individual choice than a state choice when you get down to it, and though we may label states as blue or red, the fact is that even in the deepest blue states there are still large populations of Republicans, and even in the deepest red states there are still large populations of Democrats. Not enough to win an election, but still plenty to vote with their wallet.

      According to 538 [fivethirtyeight.com], California leans has a partisan lean to the Left of roughly 25%, whereas Texas has a partisan lean to the

      • Interesting! From my vantage point here in California, I understood that almost no one in Texas had an EV.

        • I mean, I'm 100% sure that the transition both started earlier and has had more traction in California than it did in Texas, but it's gaining traction here too. I'm seeing more and more Teslas on the road every day, and even saw my first Rivian a few weeks back. I'm sure I'm driving by some of the more "boring" EVs that I'm less familiar with (e.g. Chevy Bolt) too, but I can't use the car maker's logo from a distance to know if it's an EV or not.

          We're thinking about our own next vehicle at the moment and ga

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