How Tampa Bay’s share of EVs compares to Florida, the nation

Ben Chapman shelled out enough gas money over the years — commuting from his Land O’ Lakes home to his security job in Tampa in a 2003 Ford Crown Victoria — that he began to suspect an electric car would help him save big.

So when he spotted a used Fiat 500e for just $8,000, he snagged it. That was four years ago. This year, he said the car will have paid for itself in all he’s saved on gas.

The environmental benefits were a “nice bonus,” Chapman said. But saving money was “the No. 1 thing for me.”

He’s one of thousands of Tampa Bay residents who have gone electric in the past five years, a period that saw EVs explode in popularity here. While Florida didn’t embrace EVs as quickly as some early adopters like California, its registrations of electric vehicles have ramped up, with some of the state’s metro areas leading the charge. And with President Joe Biden earlier this month announcing an ambitious new tailpipe pollution regulation to encourage electric vehicles, experts said they expect the momentum to continue.

“Florida is now one of the stronger states relative to all the others,” said Thomas Libby, an analyst at S&P Global Mobility, an automotive market research firm. “It’s come on in the last few years and now its share (of the market) is substantial.”

As of January of this year, Florida had more than 202,000 EVs on the road, according to S&P, a figure second only to California. More than 42,000 of those were in the Tampa Bay area.

Across the country, EV adoption is uneven. Buyers typically skew wealthier, younger and more Asian than U.S. averages, Libby said, and are slightly more likely to be men. States have adopted EVs at very different rates, with the vehicles generally being most popular on the nation’s coasts.

Even within Florida, the electric enthusiasm is concentrated within a few of its biggest metro areas. The Miami area, with a higher number of fast chargers and a love of flashy cars, is a hotspot. Meanwhile, the Jacksonville area lags behind its urban peers.

Tampa Bay is somewhere in the middle. Still, since 2019, its year-over-year percentage of new car registrations that are electric has increased fivefold.

Alisha Lopez, who is on the board of the pro-EV group Drive Electric Florida and also works for the South Florida Regional Planning Council, said that as vehicles have become more affordable, their popularity has spread beyond the wealthy.

As of September 2023, consumers paid an average of about $50,700 for a new EV, a nearly $15,000 reduction from a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive.

Last year, Tesla’s Model Y surpassed the Toyota Corolla as the best-selling car in the world — and Tampa Bay contributed to that trend. Tampa Bay drivers registered more than 5,000 Model Ys in 2023. Multiple rounds of price cuts coupled with a maximum $7,500 federal tax credit helped fuel the surge in Tesla sales. Generally, the EVs that were popular in the area reflected some of the less expensive models on the market. By contrast, the Miami area favored Teslas as well as luxury EVs made by BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

To keep the momentum going for EV adoption, Florida needs to add more charging infrastructure and inform people about a technology that many may feel unsure about, Lopez said.

“When cellphones arrived, it was a foreign technology to a lot of people,” she said. “This is a new technology, so right now we’re going through that adjustment.”

Education is one focus of the Tampa Bay EV Club, an informal group whose members gather at a bar or restaurant a couple of times a year to show off their cars and talk shop. Javier Guerrero, the group’s president, said the meetings offer opportunities for curious non-EV drivers to wander by. People often ask them about the logistics of charging.

“We provide exposure for the public to see EVs and the chance to talk to EV owners who can share their experience without any ulterior motive,” he said. “Unfortunately, a salesman is working for a commission … so it’s not always informative.”

Guerrero and his wife, who live in Brandon, got their first EV, a Nissan Leaf, in 2018 — putting them ahead of the curve. He’s noticed the rise in popularity of EVs around Tampa Bay, though he has an unconventional way of measuring it.

The couple’s two kids play a game in the car where they compete to see who can spot electric vehicles first, similar to the “slug bug” game for Volkswagen Beetles (though in this version, they don’t punch each other).

Now, with all the EVs on the road, “it keeps them busy,” Guerrero said with a laugh. He said his interest in electric vehicles all started because of them.

“I care about their future,” he said. “Climate change is something we’re already experiencing.”

The new rule issued by the Biden administration is considered one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history. It tackles the country’s largest source of carbon emissions by requiring carmakers to increasingly taper the pollution from the tailpipes of new cars. And it comes with an aggressive timeline, aiming for the majority of new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric or hybrid by 2032.

“We’ve got to push in that direction,” said George Philippidis, the director of the sustainable energy concentration at the University of South Florida’s Patel College of Global Sustainability, pointing to the urgency of climate change. He said he’s optimistic that if Floridians are presented with more EV choices at dealerships because of this new rule, more people will continue to switch to electric.

“Whether we’ll be able to reach 50% market share or so by (the target year), that might be optimistic,” Philippidis added. “But even if we get close to that, it’s a step in the right direction.”