California EV sales kick off strong this year despite recent slump, Tesla fatigue
California electric vehicle sales started strong this year, a sign of a healthy market for low and zero-emissions cars despite last year’s drop in sales, concerns about public charging and fatigue with the state’s leading EV manufacturer.
The news comes just days after Tesla, which still sells the most electric vehicles of any other car company, announced it would open up its fast chargers to electric vehicles from other manufacturers including Ford and Rivian.
EV sales in the first three months of this year were the strongest of any other first quarter, according to data released Wednesday by the state’s Energy Commission — 102,507 total sales. That means full electric cars made up a quarter of vehicle sales across the state.
“The EV transition is in full swing with nearly one in four California car shoppers choosing to go electric over the last year resulting in record sales,” said CEC chair David Hochschild in a written statement. “This is good news.”
The new numbers also come amid a recent slowdown at Tesla. The company’s cars still make up the majority of the state’s EV market, but the company’s in-state sales were down for the second straight quarter, according to a recent report from the California New Car Dealers Association.
And not long after saying its highly reliable network of Superchargers made access deals with other car companies, its owner Elon Musk said his company fired the 500 person team who works on the network.
California’s “love affair with electric vehicle giant Tesla may have peaked,” the group said in a news release, suggesting that the company’s dominance is waning as traditional manufacturers such as Mercedes and BMW gain ground.
That doesn’t mean consumers aren’t wanting to drive cleaner vehicles. According to registration data in the CNCD report, the combination of full electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles made up 37.5% of all new car registrations so far this year.
After a spate of headlines in recent months that the market is slowing down, director of the UC Davis EV Research Center Gil Tal said the new sales figures are more likely a sign of market maturity.
Car companies are now trying to hit clean car targets in states other than California, Tal said, which has historically dominated the market. He added that availability and relative affordability of used Teslas and other EVs could also be playing a role.
“California sales were growing at such a steep rate that it was clear it couldn’t keep going towards the sky,” he said. “So it’s still growing, just slower.”
Whether manufacturers can meet the demand for affordable EVs in California’s race to meet its ambitious climate goals, including Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pledge to ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars and light trucks by 2035, is still unclear.
But Carleen Cullen, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Cool the Earth, is confident the state is on track. She said she expects EV sales to swell as potential car buyers realize the benefits of Supercharger access and more competition enters the market.
“The fact that these numbers are this strong, even in this state of flux, means there’s really strong demand that is going to climb once consumers catch up with the fact that all these public charging networks are growing and available,” she said.
