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New Registrations For Electric Vehicles Doubled In US Last Year (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Electric vehicles, still a small percentage of the total automotive market in the U.S., are beginning to gain ground, according to analysis by IHS Markit. There were 208,000 new registrations for electric vehicles in the U.S. last year, more than double the number filed in 2017, IHS said Monday. That growth in EVs was heavily concentrated in California as well as nine other states that have adopted the Zero Emission Vehicle program. California was the first to launch the ZEV program a state regulation that requires automakers to sell electric cars and trucks there. Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont are also ZEV states.

California accounted for nearly 46 percent, or 95,000, of new EV registrations in 2018, IHS said. California has 59 percent of market share of registered electric vehicles in the U.S. More than 350,000 new EVs will be sold in the US in 2020. Those figures will give EVs a still tiny 2 percent share of the total U.S. fleet. By 2025, that figure is expected to rise to more than1.1 million vehicles sold or a 7 percent share, according to recent IHS Markit. The Tesla's Model 3 is the top selling all-electric in the U.S. so far this year, followed by the Chevy Bolt, Tesla Model X, Tesla Model S and the Nissan Leaf, according to estimates by Inside EVs.

22 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. My colleague just bought a Tesla by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2, Insightful

    She said it can get her from Seattle to Victoria BC on 3/4 charge.

    Only old people use fossil fuel vehicles anymore.

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    1. Re: My colleague just bought a Tesla by sphealey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. Which is why there is no such thing as a tool rental store for example - everyone has a 30" concrete cutoff saw in their storage space for that one time in their life they need it.

    2. Re:My colleague just bought a Tesla by starless · · Score: 3, Informative

      Only old people use fossil fuel vehicles anymore.

      Or people who live in apartments with no place to charge their cars overnight.

    3. Re:My colleague just bought a Tesla by Barsteward · · Score: 3, Informative

      A lot of the newer EVs have a camper mode where you can have the heater on all night if you want, it shouldn't drain the battery too much as they use the more efficient heat pumps rather then conventional heating. Check out Bjorn Nylands videos, he sleeps in his car on some of his EV tests in Norway.

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    4. Re: My colleague just bought a Tesla by laird · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think your idea of charging times is a bit dated. A Tesla Supercharger can get you 75 miles of range in ten minutes, and a full charge while eating lunch. I've found that if I head out for a long drive early, I can drive a few hours between stops, and breakfast/lunch/dinner work out as naturel breaks. Yes, it's a little slower than driving continuously, but it's a lot nicer and a lot cheaper. Atlanta to Orlando cost 1/4th as much in my Tesla than it did for gas in my Honda Odyssey, and it's way more relaxing to drive with AutoPilot, etc.

    5. Re: My colleague just bought a Tesla by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

      You're talking like a 'road trip' is obscure like a 30" concrete cutoff saw; nice strawman. Aren't road trips part of the American way?

      Not for me, but regardless, I'm not buying a car for the chance that I may want to take a road trip once or twice a year, or the off chance that I will need to haul 500lbs of granite slab. You rent that crap.

      I buy my commute car for my commute: it needs to have no more than 100 miles of range (in fact 75 would be plenty), be comfortable, ideally has some self-drive since traffic is shit and I would rather a computer manage the stop and go, and it has to be totally, completely reliable. The family car primarily for holding between 4-6 people, and shuttling people around town, possibly with groceries and whatever sports equipment two kids might need tops.

      My vacations, when I'm forced to do family vacations, usually involves flying on a plane to someplace. Losing a day (or two in my case) of travel each direction really cuts into the limited vacation time my corporate masters allow me, I don't see any particular value in driving through the parts of America that are best known to me as being archaic and hopelessly old fashioned.

    6. Re:My colleague just bought a Tesla by laird · · Score: 2

      The base Tesla Model 3 is $39k (with autopilot, before gas savings and tax refund), which is barely over the $37,500 average new car price in the US. So, as with any car, only people that can afford it will buy and drive it, but it's not an outrageous price.

      Then you should also keep in mind the significant operating savings - BEVs cost a lot less to operate and maintain than ICE or hybrid. For me, the Tesla costs 2 cents/mile to run, vs 7-9 cents/mile for my previous gas car. And not only is electricity much cheaper than gas, but there's near-zero maintenance, since the motors, drive train, etc., have 1/10th as many parts to break or wear out. And it's both safer and more fun to drive, all of which is worth something.

    7. Re:My colleague just bought a Tesla by dcw3 · · Score: 2

      Only old people use fossil fuel vehicles anymore.

      Yeah, because the non-"old people" population is 0.45%?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Hardly an insightful comment since it's flat out wrong.

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    8. Re:My colleague just bought a Tesla by starless · · Score: 2

      Would be hard in my apartment building - there's only street parking, and I live on the 4th floor!

  2. Expect lots more in CA by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 2

    Gas prices have really been rising fast on the West coast, especially in California. That will drive lots of EV sales.

    1. Re:Expect lots more in CA by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, in BC WA OR CA there's an electric charge spot everywhere, plus most new housing is required to have solar on it. That plus our electric base cost around here is maybe 1/20th to fill up that gas is for the same distance. We'll all be 100 percent green electric in less than 10 years, plus electrics cost half to pay for maintenance what gas costs.

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  3. Your ICE car will soon be obsolete and worthless by mspohr · · Score: 4, Informative

    https://thinkprogress.org/elec...

    Plummeting battery prices to make electric cars cheaper than gas cars in 3 years
    A Bloomberg bombshell.
    Achieving parity for upfront, initial cost means that the buying decision for electric vehicles (EVs) is about to become a no-brainer.
    That’s because EVs are already superior to gasoline cars in many key respects: they have faster acceleration, much lower maintenance costs, zero tail-pipe emissions, and a much lower per-mile fueling cost than petrol cars, even when running on carbon-free fuel.

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  4. Sounds impressive, but... by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 4, Informative

    There were 208,000 new registrations for electric vehicles in the U.S. last year

    That's less than a quarter of the number of F150s Ford sells in a year.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

    1. Re:Sounds impressive, but... by swillden · · Score: 2

      Two times jack shit is still jack shit.

      This is true, if the doubling is one-time. If it continues year after year, however, exponential growth kicks in and numbers get big fast.

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  5. Re:2 times a very small number by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    Re "poor people to get to their job and back" and "$50k" AC?
    Really? People are living in RV, tents and are demanding rent control in the USA AC.
    They need a quality used car under $10K AC.
    Living pay to pay. With some savings to cover a new $50k family-sized electric SUV?
    The world needs many different types of car AC. Not just new $50k cars AC.

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  6. Re: Invest in nuclear & fossil fuels now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So in the worst case scenario that 100% of the power to charge EVs comes from fossil fuels, thereâ(TM)s still the advantage that youâ(TM)re not releasing harmful emissions right next to where people can breathe them in.

    In reality thereâ(TM)s a mix of energy sources with a good deal coming from wind and solar.

    For instance, as we type the UK is currently running on 25% renewable energy (and thatâ(TM)s at night!) with 0% from coal.

  7. Go ahead call me a fanboi by AlanObject · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Interesting how of the top 5 sellers Telsa's products take #1, #3, and #4 spots. Maybe we will now enjoy fewer postings now about how delusional and corrupt Elon Musk is and how he will go bankrupt before he delivers.

    Then again, maybe not.

    1. Re:Go ahead call me a fanboi by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Maybe we will now enjoy fewer postings now about how delusional and corrupt Elon Musk is and how he will go bankrupt before he delivers.

      If commonsense and past performance had any impact on Slashdot trolls we wouldn't be having this discussion.

  8. The increase is not market-driven by Solandri · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's required by regulation. California has a ZEV mandate. California's Air Resources Board (CARB - they set California's air quality standards) requires each automaker to sell a certain percentage of ZEVs (zero emissions vehicles) and PZEVs (partial zero emissions vehicles - i.e. hybrids). The program began in 2009, and each year the percentage increases. The formula combining these two is a bit complex, but for 2018 the requirement was 4.5% combined ZEVs, and 2.5% total ZEVs (battery EVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles). By 2025 it will be 22% combined ZEVs, with 8% total ZEVs.

    If an automaker fails to meet this percentage, they must buy credits from an automaker who exceeded it. This is why Musk started Tesla - he realized that with the ZEV mandate, even if he lost money on each EV he sold, he could remain profitable by selling the ZEV credits to other automakers. I also suspect this is why Tesla has been so slow to ramp up Model 3 production. It is beneficial to Tesla to try to delay those sales until later years when the ZEV mandate percentage is higher, and there is more demand for the ZEV credits. Right now most of the automakers are managing to hit the requisite percentage on their own (of the major brands, only Honda and Toyota missed the target last year, and had to buy credits).

    If an automaker fails to buy enough credits to meet the required percentage, they are banned from selling cars in California. And since about a dozen states representing about a third of the U.S. population automatically adopts CARB's guidelines, the automaker would be banned from selling cars in those states as well. No automaker wants to be cut off from a third of the U.S. market. So they're all busy rolling out EVs to comply with CARB's ZEV mandate. Towards the end of the year, if it looks like they won't sell enough EVs, they start slashing the prices, even selling/leasing them at a loss to try to meet the percentage. This is why all the great EV deals were only in California - only EVs sold/leased in California counted towards the mandate (that is changing - starting this year EVs sold in other states will count as well).

    I'm not saying there isn't demand for EVs - there almost certainly is. But the growth in EV sales is not an indicator of organic market demand. The growth is mandated by regulation, so it's the tail wagging the dog. In a free market manufacturers sell the vehicles at a modest profit, and the price determining demand. But the current situation with EVs is that the manufacturers drop the price (even selling EVs at a loss) until there's enough demand to meet the ZEV mandate percentage for the year.

    1. Re:The increase is not market-driven by laird · · Score: 2

      You do realize that _every_ new form of transportation is heavily subsidized, right? Airplanes were completely subsidized by government contracts for decades. Ditto trains. Cars are still heavily subsidized - highways, oil company subsidies, numerous wars over oil, etc. EVs are being subsidized because it's in the national interest for us to be able to design and manufacture EVs so that when the costs keep dropping so that in a few years BEVs are straight out cheaper than gas cars that we're not locked out of the market.

  9. Re:Gas stations by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    https://plugmeinproject.com/

    This guy drove from Amsterdam to Perth (89000km), not directly mind you, he went via the northernmost tip of Norway showing that your car literally can run in nearly every environment, including environments like the middle east where absolutely *zero* superchargers are available.

  10. Car pool lanes by aberglas · · Score: 2

    A bigger factor. Why my mate in California bought an EV. Beat the traffic.

    That is worth more than money.