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Californians Have Now Purchased Half a Million EVs (arstechnica.com)
According Veloz -- an electric car industry group -- electric vehicle sales in California hit a cumulative 512,717 since 2010. "Months of strong U.S. sales in 2018, preceded by a strong 2017, are starting to show a trend: electric vehicles are selling well, especially in places where there are strong monetary and non-monetary incentives to buy them," reports Ars Technica. From the report: "Overall, this year has seen exponential growth in electric car sales," Veloz wrote. "Electric cars accounted for 7.1 percent of California car sales in the first three quarters of the year, with fully electric, zero-emission car sales outpacing plug-in hybrid sales 4.1 percent to 3 percent respectively." Veloz's data tallies not just fully battery-electric vehicles but also plug-in hybrids as well as the much rarer fuel cell vehicles. The group gets its data (PDF) from the blogs InsideEVs and HybridCars.com as well as a market-research firm called Baum & Associates and estimates from the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
According to data from InsideEVs, the Tesla Model 3 was the top-selling electric vehicle model in the U.S. in November. In November alone, 18,650 of those vehicles were sold in the U.S. To its credit, Veloz's press release isn't too self-congratulatory. The group writes, "Veloz recognizes that, while electric car sales are increasing at a rapid clip, it is not happening fast enough to achieve the deep cuts in emissions that the state needs to achieve to protect people's health and curb negative impacts on the environment."
According to data from InsideEVs, the Tesla Model 3 was the top-selling electric vehicle model in the U.S. in November. In November alone, 18,650 of those vehicles were sold in the U.S. To its credit, Veloz's press release isn't too self-congratulatory. The group writes, "Veloz recognizes that, while electric car sales are increasing at a rapid clip, it is not happening fast enough to achieve the deep cuts in emissions that the state needs to achieve to protect people's health and curb negative impacts on the environment."
Coal is such a red herring regardless, as it's been dying, keeps dying, and there's not realistically anything that's going to save it.
Sadly I wouldn't be so fast to erect a tombstone on coal just yet. Several reasons:
1) Coal is incredibly abundant in the US (we are the Saudi Arabia of coal) and abundant supply tends to equal cheap
2) Never underestimate a strong political lobby regardless of the absurdity of their positions (see NRA)
3) Lots of idiot voters in the US who think money (regardless of source) is more important than breathable air and habitable climate
4) Solar and wind are coming on strong but aren't a slam dunk obvious economic choice just yet
5) We don't have anything that can fully replace coal in the next 50 years aside from nuclear and nuclear is a political dead end.
6) Partisan politics in Washington on the right that is suspicious of anything favored by "those hippies on the left" regardless of actual merit