In Southern California, I would say that the vast majority of fuel efficient cars on the road were Prius, Leafs, and a few Chevy Volts just before the pandemic. Teslas were considered more of a luxury car so they were there, but not as many. At that time, I would say that you would see 1 out every 20-25 cars being a hybrid or EV.
Over this weekend, I was at a busy intersection in Los Angeles and at least half the cars that I drove pass or were around me were EVs or Hyrbids of various brands. I know it’s a small sample size, but I would say that we’re now looking at about 1 out of every 10-12 vehicles in Los Angeles being an EV or hybrid.
The way you can really tell the large jump in EVs in particular are the long lines waiting to charge cars at an Electrify America station. Pre-pandemic, there were no lines. Today, there are long lines even at 1am at the popular EA level three stations.
For me, this is great to see. But, I am also aware that California has done a lot to promote EVs/Hybrids over the last several years to make this a thing. The other thing that has helped is that there are numerous charging stations around my city. Granted, many of these are level 2 chargers. But I have 8 charging points within walking distance from my house. We still need a lot more level 3 chargers, but my city has a very good spread of level 2 chargers throughout the city with many more to come.
For those that do not live in California, are you also seeing a boom in EVs/Hyrbids. I’m curious to see if this is what you see if your living in the midwest or the south.
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The free chargers at work are hard to get now.
The Tesla Model 3 isn’t called the California Camry for no reason
100k desert southwest city and EV’s are still pretty few and far between. Mostly Teslas, Bolts, occasional Leaf, a few Ioniq 5 & ID4, one EV5. I’ve seen 2 Lightnings but have never seen a Rivian, Polestar, Lucid or any of the other exotic brands. As you would expect there are almost no public charging stations in town with only 1 DCFC that I’m aware of and it is at a car dealer. Although Tesla put in a new Supercharger location out by the highway which is nice for travelers but I’d guess close to 100% of local owners charge at home.
Hybrids seem pretty common though with mostly Toyota’s.
I live in a small town just south of San Francisco and in the one mile drive from my house to town I typically see at least a dozen Teslas.
I wonder if EVs are seen around town more because they are driven more.
I believe that there is a strong effect where in a two car household with one EV and one non-EV, a large preference to driving the EV will occur. First it will tend to be the newer/nicer car so if you’re going out together somewhere why wouldn’t you take the EV. Second it would just make good financial sense to have the person with the longer commute use the EV.
But then there are probably a subset of drivers who do a lot of driving who might prefer an ICE because of the whole range/infrastructure issue. Also, more affordable housing often means longer commutes, and perhaps many ICE cars are doing long commutes because EVs, and new cars in general, are outside the price bracket of many people having to commute for a couple of hours every day.
I live around Sacramento and visited LA for a long weekend. Was surprised while *EV vehicles were around, it seemed maybe half of those I see at home.
There are loads of EVs in my area. This information is a bit old now, but there was at least a time where Sacramento had the most public charging stations per capita in the country.
I have lived and worked in Socal for a couple of decades now and yes it’s no longer uncommon to see EV’s EVERYWHERE. If you’re in any given parking lot in LA it’s not crazy to see even HALF the cars in the lot being EV’s or hybrid/PHEV.
can’t be true, the electric grid would be crashed! /s
I heard an NPR report that said CA has 3% BEVs while TX has 2%. Hybrids not included in those figures. Very surprising to see that CA has only 50% more BEVs considering how CA and TX are on the extreme ends of the political spectrum.
Edit: It may have been 2% in Travis county (Austin), which sounds more realistic
To me I noticed a big change around summer of 22. Before that you’ld see a ton of Tesla’s and maybe some old leafs but no other electric cars. But that was the first time that I’d see a other EVs every day. Before that if I saw an ID4, A Rivian, an EV 6, or Mach E, it was very exotic. Now Rivians are as common as Model S was in 2018, and I see Iconiqs, Mach Es, and ID 4s constantly. Not to mention all the others.
California is way, way, way ahead of the rest of the country with around 25% of new cars purchased being EVs vs 6-7% for the rest of the country. That said, I live in Texas in a pretty conservative suburban area and there’s more EV’s on the road than I can count. I’d say on busy streets, consistently at least 3 of the cars stopped are EVs (myself and 2 others). On my street I have an EV6, one of my immediate neighbors has an ID.4 and another a few houses down a Leaf, around the corner a few Tesla’s and a Mach E. A friend of mine just got a Ariya.
remember where the rest of the country is today, is where California was a few years ago… granted politics unfortunately comes to play with EV’s no idea why. Wait yes i do, fox news
It all started with Rush Limbaugh. He decreed that any measure of green technology was a left wing conspiracy to take away people’s freedoms.
i think cost is a big factor rather than political idiology.
gas is $6 over here. if youre buying a new car then it is cheaper to go electric.
that plus the $7500 federal tax and up to $9500 in state rebates
The cost really depends where you are in CA. In some places electricity is so expensive that it negates the additional savings from not having to fill up at $6/gal. Plus there are no statewide rebates if you make over $43k, so we’re reliant on regional or countywide incentives to sweeten the deal.
Basically, EVs are a no brainer in much of the state, but in other parts it’s still hard to make the cost/benefit math work. Frustrating for the minority of us in rural CA who want EVs.
Here in the Bay Area, I can see Tesla’s entire product line-up (minus Roadster) in my 5-minute commute to drop my kids off at school.
I live outside of Richmond, VA in a fairly wealthy suburb. I wasnt very aware of EVs until 18 mo ago when i was told (incorrectly) that my head gasket was blown and I started looking for a replacement. So now I notice.
When I’m at the Whole Foods near me, there are always several EVs in the parking lot - but probably not more than 5 or 10% of the cars, max. When I worked at the DMV downtown I rarely saw any in the employee lot.
So definitely still seen as a luxury car here, i think.
Because the income to live somewhere “fancy” in RVA, like short pump, is basically the starting tech income on the west coast for someone fresh out of college (120-150k before stocks or bonuses).
For context, a typical annual bonus in west coast tech is enough to buy a model Y. Heck, an intern with a good return offer can buy one with their starting bonus.
wow! thanks for that context!
I’m in Ashland (Hanover County - screaming Tea Party and conservative, the GOP candidates win up here with 60-70% of the vote, and the GOP just talked the voters out of an elected school board in place of the current appointed one, and started banning books in the school district two weeks later).
Tesla’s are common as hell around here, at least in the Ashland-Atlee I-95 corridor. Bolt’s are fairly common, now being matched in numbers by Ioniq 5’s. Still, jacked up pickups outnumber them by at least 50 to 1.
Silicon Valley here, if actually outside (bedroom community of sorts). EVs are everywhere. The campus I work on has enough EVs of similar make/model to what I have - '19 Bolt EV Premier - such that when I pick up my gf she has to double check to make sure it’s me driving before she gets in. The on-campus chargers pretty much always have people using them, there’s lots, and they’re actually charging. We have more than is normal too.
Still large non-hybrids, regular ICEs and so on, almost to the point that I’m noticing them more. But then I travel to visit family in the midwest and it’s back to the mid-late teens in what I see.
A friend from northern Europe was actually the first person I heard say California is kind of a different country than the rest of the US. From his perspective, we could (should? probably not & can’t) be in the EU.
So far this year just over 43% of new car sales in Santa Cara county are ZEV.
For Bay Area residents, we notice the lack of EV’s on the road once we go to different places.