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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."
The answer is that they're not, they're just pretending while actually increasing emissions... elsewhere. This is a common theme in much-ballyhood "green" initiatives. The fact your comment is getting negrated again says that pretense is more important than actually caring about the environment, at least to some people.
It's mandated by law. CARB (California Air Resources Board) runs a ZEV mandate. Each year, automakers have to sell a certain percentage of zero emissions vehicles. The formula is a bit complex (it also includes partial ZEVs like hybrids and plug-in hybrids). But the quota for 2018 is 2.5% ZEVs. For 2025, it will be 8%.
Every automaker has to sell this percentage of ZEVs. If they fail, they have to buy credits from an automaker who exceeded their quota. If they fail that, they are banned from selling cars in California. And since about a half dozen states representing nearly a third of the U.S. population automatically adopt CARB's guidelines, the automaker would be banned from selling cars to a third of the U.S.
No automaker wants to be cut off from a third of the U.S. market. So they will do whatever it takes to meet the mandated ZEV percentage for the year. If that means running crazy sales and incentives (VW offered a 3 year/30,000 mile lease on an eGolf for $49/mo $1500 down, or $79/mo zero down a few years back), then so be it. In other words, the sales numbers do not represent true market demand. The ZEV mandate means if not enough EVs are being sold to meet the quota, automakers will discount EV prices until it does. (This is also why the best EV deals are in California - only EVs sold or leased in California count towards the ZEV mandate.)
That said, real demand seems to be meeting or exceeding the mandated percentage the last couple years, since I haven't seen a repeat of the crazy year-end sales and incentives. But this isn't a metric you can reliably use to gauge real demand. As the mandated ZEV percentage gets higher, it becomes harder for automakers to subsidize their prices to meet the mandate if there's insufficient demand (the discount for each EV has to be amortized over fewer ICE vehicles). So if the mandated percentage outstrips demand by too much, it'll create a situation where it'll be cheaper for Californians to buy an ICE vehicle out-of-state and bring it in, rather than buy it in California. Thus skewing the official sales figures further from real demand.
California is one of the few states where it is clear that they're exhausting their state's ability to support population growth. Yet the state at all levels continues to pull for as many immigrants as they can get. Doesn't matter whether they're legal or illegal, California wants them! All of the water-related stresses are a sign that this situation is not maintainable going forward under their current attitudes.
If they were serious politically, they'd be building metro systems left and right that connect whole cities and their suburbs. They'd push through SLAPP-like laws that allow the state to punish NIMBYism and environmental activists who sue without a damn good reason. There is a lot the state could do within its budget to build practical solutions to protect its environment, but there are only a few politically-acceptable solutions that don't risk goring a sacred cow.
Top five tradeins for a Tesla Model 3:
* BMW 3-Series
* Toyota Prius
* Nissan Leaf
* Honda Accord
* Honda Civic
Yep, that totally sounds like a profile of the rich! Why, just the other day I saw Bill Gates driving around in an old Civic....
Seen on a Japanese food processor: "Not to be used for the other use."
Where are you getting this $22 Trillion/year number? Since that is larger than the entire GDP of the United States, I'd like to see your source. It seems unlikely to be true.