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New EV study praises Tesla, BMW & Nissan for nationwide availability, shames Honda & Toyota

EV availability US

With recent studies showing electric vehicles would cover the needs of the vast majority of car owners in the US, nationwide availability of electric vehicles has never been more important. A new study from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) paints an interesting picture of EV availability in the US, praising Tesla, BMW and Nissan for their nationwide availability, and shaming Honda and Toyota for their little effort in making plug-in vehicles available.

As you can see in the picture above, the study also clearly illustrates the efficiency of ZEV mandates in making EVs available in their markets, with California still being the clear leader. The number in each state represents the number of EV models available for sales in the state.

UCS breaks down the main automakers in “leaders” and “laggards”:

THE LEADERS

  • BMW has made a major commitment to electrification, and its EV sales reflect that. BMW leads all major automakers in EVs sales as a proportion of total sales: more than 3 percent across the United States and topping 7 percent in California.
  • General Motors, with the Chevrolet Volt, and Nissan, with the LEAF, were early leaders in developing and selling EVs. The Volt is the top-selling plug-in hybrid EV, and the LEAF is the top-selling battery EV since 2010.
  • Tesla is a leader among automakers, producing only EVs. It was the top-selling EV carmaker in 2015 and its upcoming Model 3 has attracted unprecedented interest.

THE LAGGARDS

  • Honda currently offers no plug–in electric vehicles in the United States. Even when the company did sell EVs here, its efforts lagged behind those of other automakers. Honda’s total EV sales in the United States since 2011 are lower than General Motors’ EV sales in a single month (April 2016).
  • While Toyota is a leader in hybrid-vehicle technology, it lags in deploying plug-in electric vehicles. Toyota had success in selling the Prius Plug-in, but the company removed the model from the market and currently has no plug-in EV for sale in this country.

Aside from Tesla since it only sells EVs, UCS found an obvious link between the nationwide availability of an automaker’s EVs and the percentage of EV sales in the manufacturer’s total vehicle sales:

The study is an interesting read. Here it is in full:

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Avatar for Fred Lambert Fred Lambert

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