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Power Transportation United States

New Registrations For Electric Vehicles Doubled In US Last Year (techcrunch.com) 169

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.

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New Registrations For Electric Vehicles Doubled In US Last Year

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  • by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @06:32PM (#58446656) Homepage Journal

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

    Only old people use fossil fuel vehicles anymore.

    • Oh, and BC isn't a state. Even if all vehicles sold there have to be electric by 2025.

    • 106.9 miles... [google.com] stipulating that 75% is an accurate description of the state of battery depletion, I've got +/- 35 miles left to recharge or park 'side the highway.

      Until the EV charging network is a tad more ubiquitous, why not include an optional backup fossil fuel-powered (gasp) generator to make ends meet on a longer trip... or maybe for life-saving heat when I'm snowed in 'side the highway in an ever more common bomb cyclone?

      • by Barsteward ( 969998 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2019 @01:54AM (#58447678)
        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.
      • It's an interesting point, which some of the BEV true believers will hate because you know, they have religion. I have both a Volt for my daughters and a Tesla for myself.

        I think the Volt is an interesting car, and a PHEV can make a lot of sense for some people. I'm sorry that GM killed that car, but I think we're about to see a bunch of other companies coming out with PHEV (I just hope they have reasonable electric range, unlike the Subaru that has 13 miles of electric range... the Volt got that right... 4

    • by starless ( 60879 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @09:48PM (#58447232)

      Only old people use fossil fuel vehicles anymore.

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

      • by laird ( 2705 )

        Good point, though some cities are requiring apartment buildings to provide charging plugs. Since a standard 110v or 120v plug is sufficient, that's a pretty easy requirement to meet.

        • by starless ( 60879 )

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

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

            How does street-only parking for a multi-story apartment building work? I guess most residents don't have cars?

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        At some point it will become an important question people ask when looking for an apartment: "does it have car charging?"

        • Sooner for some than others. I am currently in the market for a rental property while planning on purchasing an EV - I want to trade-in my current vehicle on a used Leaf. One life decision will clearly dictate the other.
    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      Only old people use fossil fuel vehicles anymore.

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

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

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

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

      Yes, because it's only 82 miles to Port Angeles and the rest is by ferry. So she used up 3/4 charge for 82 miles?

  • by liquid_schwartz ( 530085 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @06:43PM (#58446694)
    Gas prices have really been rising fast on the West coast, especially in California. That will drive lots of EV sales.
    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      What will drive EV sales the most, a range of mid sized SUVs, with good range and a reasonable price, plus a selection of manufacturers and models. Just typical sales stuff. Next up, home solar power systems with batteries, have one of those, then having an electric vehicle is a no brainier, tax free refuelling and the electric companies will pay you bugger all for the excess electricity you generate, they have a monopoly on your access to the grid.

      Tesla et al would probably be really smart in terms of acce

      • by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @06:54PM (#58446726) Homepage Journal

        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.

  • by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @07:01PM (#58446736)

    https://thinkprogress.org/elec... [thinkprogress.org]

    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.

  • by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @07:05PM (#58446750)

    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... [forbes.com]

    • It's enough that I know at least 6 people at work (out of 20 co-workers) that have electric cars or plugin hybrids and for the most part aren't buying gasoline anymore - just 3-4 years ago it was zero - you'd be a fool not to wake up and smell the batteries if your making cars.

    • No "but" about it. It is impressive given that the F150 is basically the American flag on wheels. The fact that EVs are taking off at all in a country that worships oil and trucks almost as much as guns and jesus is hugely impressive.

  • is a very small number.
    The world needs a low cost, affordable electric subcompact with range.
    • Doubling adaption rates of a new technology year over year is no small number no matter how you look at it, project these growth rates to next decade and see what happens. It's like a medieval European hearing about Mongol invasion and seeing the very first arrow sticking out of his roof and going "big deal, it's just one arrow".
  • We have a leaf, so max range ~ 100mi. I keep it charged to = 40% unless we are going out of town, gets us all around town and back. Lower cost per mile, lower total cost of ownership (saving a ton in maintenance). Can rent a car for long journeys but the charging infrastructure is kicking in so haven't done it yet (but plan to). Some cars in some places have had negative depreciation (worth more if you sell it in 12 months). I doubt I'd get that lucky, and I doubt it will hold.

    Oh yeah, and the beautiful qui

  • as this trend of electric vehicle purchases indicates a future higher usage of these fuels. If everyone buys an electric vehicle we'll need to use every bit of coal also. Energy has to come from somewhere and demand will dictate using the fuels available. Fossils fuels will be used whether it is on the highway or in the power plant. Even amazing lithium batteries won't change that unless we return to nuclear based power.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      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.

  • For a gas car there are about 120,000 gas stations, and every mile comes from them.

    BEV have several million outlets that cam charge it. Any electric dryer outlet is level 2!

    Leaving home everyday with a full tank, priceless !!

  • by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @10:55PM (#58447370)

    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.

    • 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.

  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday April 17, 2019 @01:21AM (#58447646)
    It's required by regulation. California has a ZEV mandate [ucsusa.org]. 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.
    • A bigger factor. Why my mate in California bought an EV. Beat the traffic.

      That is worth more than money.

    • by laird ( 2705 )

      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

    • by SpiceWare ( 3438 )

      We don't have a ZEV mandate in Texas. The state even goes out of their way to make it difficult to buy a Tesla (cannot discuss price in the "gallery", must order online, must pay in full before it can be shipped to Texas, etc), recently tried to pass a bill [kxan.com] that would have forced Tesla to close service centers, and even prevents Tesla owners [autoblog.com] from taking advantage of the Texas $2500 EV incentive as it's only available if vehicle was purchased from a Texas Dealer.

      And despite all that, if you take a look at T [tesla.com]

  • It is hard to believe its the tech or even the "green-ness" of it though there are people who believe it is.
    How popular would EVs be if it were not for tax breaks and free electricity?

If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a conclusion. -- William Baumol

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