ZEVs accounted for 18.8% of all new cars sold in California in 2022; 3 counties account for almost half
22 January 2023
California announced that 18.8% (345,818 units) of all new cars sold last year in California were ZEVs. A small number of those ZEV sales (3.89%, or 3,303 units) were made to out-of-state buyers. 40% of ZEVs sold in the US are sold in California.
Snapshot of CEC’s ZEV Sales dashboard.
ZEV share of new car sales in 2022 by California county.
Actual sales of ZEVs by California county. Counties are in the same order as in the chart above.
ZEV sales in California are up 38% from 2021 and 138% from 2020. The distribution of sales within the state, however, is highly uneven, with shares of new ZEV sales by county ranging from a high of 34.04% in Santa Clara county to a low of 0.63% in Modoc county.
In terms of actual sales, three California counties—Los Angeles, Orange and Santa Clara—account for almost 50% of the state’s new ZEV sales: 169,869 units out of 345,818. With San Diego and Alameda counties for the top 5, the total is 219,257, or 63.4% of the total.
Last month, the California Energy Commission approved a $2.9-billion investment plan that accelerates California’s 2025 electric vehicle charging and hydrogen refueling goals. In November, the California Air Resources Board approved a $2.6-billion investment plan to support a wide range of ZEV projects, with 70% of the funds directed to disadvantaged and low-income communities.
In addition, California expects to receive $384 million of federal funding from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program to install charging stations throughout the state.
So they have about 1.4M EVs, both BEV and PHEV.
If we take an average mileage of 12000, and 4 Miles/kWh, we get a daily requirement of ~ 8.2 kWh / car, then 11.5 GwH / day.
Should be easily manageable, especially if people can time their charging to match availability of renewables (should be lots of sun in CA).
Posted by: mahonj | 22 January 2023 at 12:15 PM
As California moves to eliminate transportation emissions, Wyoming legislators pull a culture wars stunt to signal their subservience to oil and gas interests.
Wyoming citizens deserve better.
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 23 January 2023 at 09:27 AM
To both you guys: first, realize this high adoption rate so far is the low-hanging fruit. It's that last 1/3 of the population that will have a very hard time with this. People who must drive all day, people who can't afford a BEV, people who must drive up mountains, people who rent and don't have charging access.
The CA electric infrastructure is at it's limit, and will likely fail more often in the near future. The mandating of BEVs is still incredibly foolish, because it will cause real hardship, while the global warming 'deadlines' are arbitrary and made up.
Don't mandate an absolute adoption by force- instead, use a slower incentivised adoption to lessen the economic pain.
WY: That was a stupid stunt but CA mandates are incredibly unamerican, for example trying to force people away from using natural gas while pretending its the most harmful thing ever, is just foolish. We have a lot of NG in north america and it's relatively clean. Ceasing its use will result in a tiny drop in carbon that wont make a useful difference.
Posted by: The Lurking Jerk | 24 January 2023 at 01:36 PM
Really, the foolishness of trying to push CA residents into electric cars, and now trying to push people to use electric stoves, while having the worst electric infrastructure in the country.... what could go wrong? These mandates have created a housing crisis in CA, soon they will be requiring electric heat pumps, yet no problem facing CA has been well managed, starting with homelessness and the water situation. Now people's options will be reduced to ONE, the electric utility, which is awful, expensive and unreliable. And there won't be an alternative. At the same time, almost every windfarm, solar farm and water recycling project gets blocked in CA.
CA has done this before, 30 years ago they tried to mandate ZEV vehicles before the technology even existed. So they had to drop that mandate entirely. They've learned absolutely nothing.
Posted by: The Lurking Jerk | 24 January 2023 at 02:01 PM
With 300 miles range, you can drive all day. If you really need to drive 500 miles in a day, a single charge at lunchtime will give you another 250 miles.
BEVs will be at price parity by 2025 according to Volkswagen. A Chevy Bolt can be leased today for $218/month, or purchased for $20k with incentive.
EVs have no trouble going up hills. I have driven border to border on both coasts, and coast to coast numerous times. California Grapevine, Sierra Nevada, Rocky Mountains. No problem whatsoever.
My admin assistant drives a Bolt. Rents. Charges once a week while shopping.
If EVs will create a burden for the grid, why are electric utilities promoting them?
EVs and V2G will stabilize the grid and allow utilities to save millions on peak loading solutions.
CA learned that allowing companies to externalization their waste cost, by using the atmosphere as an open sewer was a costly mistake.
Reported right here on GCC: 50,000 premature deaths per year just in the CA Central Valley (joint MIT Stanford study)
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 24 January 2023 at 02:12 PM
@The Lurking Jerk, your freedom does not entitle you to spew cancerous and dementia causing PM2.5 particulates. CARB and/or EPA need to go much further, on a reasonable schedule, to consider regulating brake dust emissions (now easily avoidable with EV regen braking) and tire dust pollution (hint, limit hooning, and enforce effective traction control ). But first keep working on the low hanging fruit, legacy dirty diesels... Also mandate G100UL ASAP to finally stop lead pollution 50 years after the first efforts that helped reduce crime due to improved mental health. Sadly, I have seen first hand the old age dementia effect on people that drove extensively on the heavily lead polluted Los Angeles smog highways.
Posted by: GdB | 26 January 2023 at 10:19 PM