California Has ~50% Of US Electric Cars

EV Volumes recently highlighted some interesting stats with an interesting graph showing plug-in electric vehicle sales figures for the years 2011–2016 separated by state.

As the graph shows, the vast majority of plug-in electric vehicle sales in the US have been in California — with Georgia, Washington, New York, Florida, and Texas making up the anemic vanguard.

Presumably, the launch of the Tesla Model 3 and the recent launch of the Chevy Bolt EV and the Toyota Prius Prime should change this somewhat, with sales picking up in states other than California. But we’ll have to wait to see.

EV Volumes provides a bit of context on this:

“Nearly 50% of US plug-in sales are still in California. The other 9 states with ZEV mandates (CT, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT) stand for 13%. The data shows the accumulated sales between January 2011 and October 2016.

“The 10 ZEV states typically have a combined 28% of the total vehicle market but their share in plug-in sales is around 62%. In 2015/2016, the plug-in share in the 10 ZEV states was 4–5 times higher than in the US states without ZEV targets. With nationwide PEV adoption like in the ZEV states, plug-in sales would be 2 times or more of what they are today.”

Interesting. I wouldn’t count on that adoption level coming to reality anytime time soon, but perhaps the Chevy Bolt, the Toyota Prius Prime, and the Tesla Model 3 will level the field out somewhat.