2014 YTD California/US Electric Drive Sales Data

Interesting but it looks like VW sales and thus diesels are almost a footnote. Did I miss something?

Bob Wilson

 

VW is no longer the only diesel game in town. The Audi Q5 was fifth top selling luxury SUV. The Ram and Jeep brands had some big gains over the last year. Not as big, but still over 10% was BMW's increase. These all have newer diesel options.

But this is California. Diesels don't get perks like BEVs and PHVs, and they aren't seen as highly as hybrids. So the report doesn't bother to pull the data out for them.

The price gap for diesel fuel seems to be only 11 cents over regular gasoline there. Which is much better than the near 50 cents here, but their regular cost as much as Pennsylvania diesel. The higher EPA ratings and lower diesel fuel premium might make a diesel option for a model more attractive in California.

 

That increase could also be due to the huge PUSH by solar companies in CA to get people to go solar, (before the incentives are gone). When I put solar on my roof, (last year), Sunrun sales team actually pushed me a bit for the idea of putting enough solar panels up, to also cover a Plug in vehicle! Had I known I was going to be Lemon law-ing our new 2013 Dodge Dart - shortly after installing the solar panels, I surely would have considered more panels and a plug in car! Could be lots of Californians are doing just that.

By the way, anyone in the USA thinking of going solar, Sunrun is still offering a nice win-win referral program. Message me if your interested. From my Sunrun acct. website:
"Over 65,000 happy, money-saving people have gone solar with Sunrun. When you submit your referrals, you'll get $250 VISA Prepaid Card and your friend will get one for $250 when they go solar".

 

cool data. thanks.

can you add a totals column?

One big take away is those that argue that plug-ins charge in the average US, and that they are not skewed towards cleaner grids like california seem to be missing a lot of the data.

I am suprised only by the phev numbers. I would have thought these would have been around 40%, and that was true before this year, but 2014 we get 52.3%. The big growth in the segment has been the prius phv and ford fussion energi. I have to believe that these cars especially the prius phv are selling on the basis of price and hov sticker. With the federal and state incentives these two models may continue to sell even without hov, if toyota and ford set price accordingly. The prius phv gets $4K worth of incentives, I can't imagine it costs $4k more than the liftback.

Also suprising number 2 state this year is georgia, with bev incentives making the leaf very popular in atlanta.

 

I think price drops are a huge factor as well:
The 2013 Nissan Leaf was $6400 cheaper than the 2012 Nissan Leaf.
The 2014 Chevy Volt was $5000 cheaper than the 2013 Chevy Volt.
The 2014 Prius Plug-in was $2010 cheaper than the 2013 Prius Plug-in.
The 2014 Ford Fusion Energi was $4000 cheaper than the 2013 Ford Fusion Energi.

If you notice, the BEV price drop occurred for the 2013 MY (model year) whereas the PHEV price drops occurred for the 2014 MY, which could account for part of the change in sales data.

 

great info, thanks wj!

 

what percent of total car sales in the u.s. are in cali?

 

can we see the same thing with trucks in texas?

 

light vehicle sales in california are projected to be around 1.8 million in 2014, and 16.4 million in the US. These include cars, SUVs, and light trucks. I don't know the car/truck breakdown.

That means california buys about 12% of the new cars and has 11% of the population. In 2012 the average california driver had 1.25 cars with an average of 20mpg. It takes a long time to replace all those old inefficient vehicles which have an average age of 11 years. Perhaps the new sales will make a dent at california's fuel consumption.

California to Slash Gasoline Consumption by 9 Percent by 2020 - NASDAQ.com

 

thank you!

 

check my math above.

I see California buying 12% of new light vehicles, having 11% of the population, and using 10% of the oil for fuel as the US. That was based on 2014 projected sales of 1.8 million vehicles in california and 16.4 million in the US. I don't know if those projections are good though.

I bet its a higher percentage than that, but does reformulated gasoline make any difference with the prius?

I thought the prius could burn regular and reformulated equally cleanly. I could be wrong, but I don't think it needs an oxygenate.

 

California Senate Clears Path for Additional 15,000 Green HOV Stickers

 

I was in Atlanta last week and was really shocked at how many Leafs I saw on the road in one day. Now I have more of a clue.

 

I saw that too. Disappointed, as it is highly probable at this point HOV Stickers, at least the green, will be kicked out of the carpool lanes significantly before 2019.

"Between July 1 and August 19 alone, the California DMV has issued 10,769 green stickers" according to the Insideevs article. Yet nationally PHEVs sold 5740 in July. If you round those dates to about 1.6 months, that's roughly 9184 PHEVs sold during the time 10,769 stickers were issued. Assuming 52.3% of PHEV sales occurred in California, that's about 4803 sold in California. So only 44.6% of those stickers were actually issued to owners. The rest are being stockpiled by dealerships, which makes a fake sense of urgency in demand for stickers, hence giving them a reason to mark up those cars once "stickers run out." I'm sorry, but this is a well intentioned policy being taken advantage of.

 

I thought the stickers were good until then. The program should probably end soon though.

+1

Yep the only way for the numbers to add up is dealers are getting them for cars they hope to sell in the future. I agree that this is a poorly run program. You would have to look at the history of those running the program. Perhaps your unintended consequence is really intended.

 

What would be the "intended" motive to create carpool lane congestion & sticker shortages? BTW the carpool lane is often used by people with FastPasses..... basically they pay to drive solo. And the plugins can ride solo. The carpools lanes were supposed to get drivers to leave their cars at home & reduce the number of vehicles clogging ther highways, but that's no longer the case.