EV Penetration in My Utah Neighborhood

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These of us who comply with electrical automobile gross sales know that totally electrical automobiles accounted for greater than 80% of Norway’s auto gross sales in 2023, and that 100% electrical automobiles already make up greater than 24% of the full fleet there. We additionally know that in China, which has about half of all worldwide EV gross sales, gross sales penetration of BEVs was at about 25% in 2023. Nevertheless, EVs nonetheless made up lower than 5% of the full fleet in China by the top of the 12 months.

In California, 25% of all automobiles bought within the final quarter of 2023 had been EVs — it’s the most important EV market within the US by far. Nevertheless, EVs made up simply ~4% of the full California gentle automobile fleet on the finish of 2022. Although 1 in 4 new automobiles bought in California final quarter had been EVs, it’s going to take a very long time earlier than a big a part of the sunshine automobile fleet is EVs.

US plugin automobile gross sales had been solely ~8% in 2022 (9.4% in 2023) and the full share of the fleet was just one.3% by the top of the 12 months.  However, older automobiles have a tendency to sit down within the storage whereas new ones are pushed extra. That is notably true of EVs vs. fuel automobiles. In my home, everybody needs to drive the EV. The fuel automotive is unquestionably the final choice to be exercised.

How does this examine to EV penetration in my Northern Utah neighborhood?

After I retired from NASA Goddard Area Flight Heart in Maryland in 2005, we moved to Lindon, Utah, 30 miles south of Salt Lake Metropolis, to be close to our youngsters and grandchildren. We picked a home with a stupendous view of Utah Valley and Utah Lake. After dwelling for 65 years in areas the place Mormons (members of our religion) had been a tiny minority, we had been shocked to study that of the 120 households in our neighborhood, roughly 115 had been lively Mormons and often attended our ward (congregation) in our native chapel constructing. That is the story of EV uptake in our ward.

In 2014, 4 of our ward members, together with me, purchased Nissan LEAFs for the killer lease worth of $200/month. Two of the members didn’t renew the leases. I, nonetheless, was hooked on EVs. I additionally leased a 2016 Nissan LEAF after which bought a 2018 Nissan LEAF.

1) On October 19, 2019, I made the large leap and traded the LEAF in for a white, dual-motor, 310-mile vary Tesla Mannequin 3 which I nonetheless personal.

2) At about the identical time, a member of our ward bought a purple efficiency model of the 2019 Tesla Mannequin 3 (see image beneath).

The actual EV pioneer of the ward had began with an EV conversion of his Triumph sports activities automotive again in 2012, but it surely wasn’t very profitable. Extra lately, he has bought a 3) Chevy Volt and a 4) Chevy Bolt (see image beneath).

5) Additionally, my neighbor simply throughout the road then bought a Chevy Volt.

For the following 3 years, nothing! Nevertheless, 12 months in the past, one of many early LEAF house owners in my ward bought 6) a yellow Ford Mustang Mach-E (see beneath). He likes the horny yellow coloration however is sort of dissatisfied as a result of he doesn’t assume the expertise is sort of as much as the requirements of Tesla.

7) Then, the second early LEAF proprietor purchased the beautiful Tesla Mannequin X proven beneath.

I additionally simply discovered that one other ward member bought 8) a stupendous white Rivian pickup truck. It’s the featured automobile on the Drop Detailing (Murray, Utah) web site. He made a cross-country journey lately and was not impressed with the CCS fast-charging infrastructure at this level. The opposite day, 9) a stupendous purple Tesla Mannequin X drove by my home. It was bought by one other of the 4 early LEAF house owners who had lastly determined to go completely electrical.

Popping out of our neighborhood church beginning just a few weeks in the past, there was 10) a white Tesla Mannequin Y parked within the lot. (See image beneath.)

As you’ll be able to see, the dam has damaged and we’re nicely on our approach to EVs taking up the auto market in my neighborhood right here in Utah. Additionally, remarkably, all 4 ward members who tried EVs in 2014 at the moment are everlasting EV house owners. Sadly, it’s not practically sufficient, and on inversion days right here within the Wasatch Entrance area, the polluted air is lethal. (See image additional down beneath.) As lately as 2021, there have been 62 necessary unhealthy air alert days per 12 months on the Wasatch Entrance. Thus, even in the event you don’t consider or care about world warming, driving electrical is essential. Even in case you are conscious that many of the electrical energy in Utah nonetheless comes from burning coal, that coal is burned far manner and we now have loads of motivation for switching to EVs right here.

That makes a complete of 10 EVs in my neighborhood (congregation) of 120 households. That may be an EV penetration of ~8%. In comparison with the US complete fleet penetration of 1.3%, we’re doing fairly nicely. Nevertheless, if we determine that every household owns a mean of two automobiles, that might drop the penetration to about 4% — about the identical as the entire state of California. It’s attention-grabbing that we’re doing as nicely right here in my neighborhood as California is doing, the state main the US in EV adoption by a big margin.

10 EVs within the neighborhood is a giant deal! EVs are now not simply owned by two of us EV evangelists going inexperienced. They’ve change into mainstream and we might get many extra EV gross sales quickly within the neighborhood.

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