Sales of new electric vehicles in California shot up 63.7% in the first half of the year, to 51,750 units, largely on the strength of the Tesla Model 3.
But that doesn’t mean a golden age of electric vehicles has dawned. Pure electric cars still total only 5.5% of California car sales. Consumers, for the most part, are shrugging at EV offerings from car companies not named Tesla. And Tesla sales could be topping out.
“California is the largest green market in the country,” said Jessica Caldwell, market analyst at Edmunds. The state accounts for nearly half of the 105,472 pure EVs sold nationwide. “But EVs are still a tough market, even in California.”
Dealers sold nearly 950,000 new automobiles statewide in the first six months of 2019, according to the California New Car Dealers Assn. About 13% of them were “electrified” in some form — pure EV, hybrid or plug-in hybrid.
Practically all the rest run on internal combustion engines, the vast majority on gasoline. Gasoline car sales have fallen 7.3% in California thus far this year, partly because of electrified competition and partly because auto sales nationally (and internationally) have entered a cyclical downturn of yet-unknown severity.
Statewide sales of new hybrid cars, which run mainly on gasoline with an electric battery boost and don’t need to be plugged in, rose 22.1% in the first half, to 48,861 vehicles. Plug-in hybrids, which can run on battery power for a few dozen miles before having to switch to internal combustion, plummeted 28.5%, to 35,500 vehicles — in part, analysts have said, because consumers recoiled from the latest design of the plug-in hybrid leader, the Toyota Prius Prime.
Without Tesla, pure EV sales would be limp. About 33,000 Model 3s were sold in California in the first half. The next-highest seller was Chevrolet’s Bolt EV, at 4,482 cars, followed by the Tesla Model X (3,690) and the Tesla Model S (3,390.) The Nissan Leaf sold 2,034 units.
Electric car buyers “don’t seem to be EV fans, they seem to be Tesla fans,” Caldwell said. “It’s been really hard for any other company to crack the code of what people want in an EV. . . .”
One reason for the slow transition is cost. Batteries remain expensive, and EVs generally cost more. The base price of a gasoline-powered Hyundai Kona compact SUV, for instance, is $18,740; the all-electric version is $36,950, before government incentives. Other barriers: range anxiety and a shortage of public charging options. . . .