California leads the way in electrification in the United States with a much greater proportion of new cars bought that are fully-electric. According to the Office of the Governor of California, 17.7 percent of new cars sold through the month of were electric vehicles, marking a 126.9 percent increase over 2020.
The state expects that EV sales will continue going up at an increased rate as it intends to ban the sale of pure gas-burning vehicle after the year 2035. According to a graph shown by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the projection is that half of all cars sold in the state will be plug-ins (EVs and PHEVs) by 2028, reaching nearly 70 percent in 2030.
According to CARB Chair Liane Randolph,
Rapidly accelerating the number of ZEVs on our roads and highways will deliver substantial emission and pollution reductions to all Californians, especially for those who live near roadways and suffer from persistent air pollution.
The regulation includes ground-breaking strategies to bring ZEVs to more communities and is supported by the Governor’s ZEV budget which provides incentives to make ZEVs available to the widest number of economic groups in California, including low- and moderate-income consumers.
California may be a leader in the US when it comes to the number of electrified vehicles being purchased, but it can’t compare to the world leader, Norway. The northern European nation has unmatched EV adoption statistics, with as many as 80 percent of new car purchases being for fully-electric vehicles during certain months - it is expected to completely shift its new car market to EVs even before the European Union-imposed deadline of 2035, even if EV sales growth in the country is not the most consistent; a decline has been observed over the past few months.
But for the US, 18 percent of new cars being EVs is still an impressive achievement, although it’s worth noting that most of these vehicles are Teslas, which is not the case in Europe where the choice of EVs among buyers is much more varied. Europeans still buy Teslas, but not overwhelmingly so like American buyers do, and the American EV manufacturer won’t have as easy a time becoming a leader on the Old Continent as it did in America.
Source: CARB