Electric cars have been selling quite well lately in the United States, albeit not at a rate that had been expected by manufacturers and the government, which has been trying to boost sales by offering various incentives to consumers.
Electric cars have been selling quite well lately in the United States, albeit not at a rate that had been expected by manufacturers and the government, which has been trying to boost sales by offering various incentives to consumers. Nonetheless, even though EVs still only make up less than 1% of all new car sales in the country, demand for these alternative fuel vehicles has been increasing constantly over the past few years, with California being the state with the highest electric vehicle sales numbers for a while now.
A couple of weeks ago, probably the most eco-friendly state hit a significant milestone, with cumulative sales of plug-in cars reaching the 100,000 mark, making California the first state to do so. By the end of August, a total of 102,440 plug-in vehicles have been sold in California, a number that includes both plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. However, it should be noted that this doesn’t make California the state with the highest percentage of electric vehicles in the country, due to the higher sales figures for all types of vehicles than most other states. In 2013, EVs accounted for about 1.5% of all new car sales in California, where a total of 1.7 million vehicles were sold. This year, though, 3 percent of all vehicles sold in California were plug-ins.
The best-selling EV in California is the Nissan Leaf, followed by the Chevrolet Volt and the Toyota Prius.
The data on EV sales in California was published by HybridCars.com and Baum & Associates, a market research firm with headquarters in Michigan. According to the California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative, almost 40 percent of all PEVs sold in the U.S. have been purchased by Californians. The 102,440 PEVs were bought between December 2010 and August 2014, and hopefully, it puts the Golden State on track to hit the target of 1.5 million hybrids and electric cars on the road by 2025, which was set by Governor Jerry Brown.
The data released by the Collaborative shows that battery electric vehicles (BEV) sales have seen a major growth over the past three years, jumping from 6,197 in 2012 to 21,963 in 2013, and reaching 15,251 through the end of August of 2014. Plug-in hybrids, for their part, which include the likes of Chevrolet Volt, have maintained a steady sales pace over the same period, but EVs – such as the Nissan Leaf (the world’s best-selling all-electric car) – have managed to catch them up. In 2014, a total of 16,239 hybrids were sold in California, which is only 1,000 more than the number of BEVs sold, whereas in 2012, there was a much more significant difference between these two types of plug-in vehicles, with over 14,000 hybrids purchased in this state.
By all means, California’s rebates of up to $2,500 for each plug-in vehicle that is purchased or leased, in addition to the government’s tax credits of up to $7,500, have played a key role in the accelerated adoption of these vehicles in the Golden State.