California Reaches EV Target Sales Two Years Ahead

While the demand for electric vehicles is increasing day by day, California just reached 1.5 million EV sales, two years ahead of its 2025 planned target. This target was originally set by former Governor Jerry Brown in 2012.

Reaching EV Sales Target

More than 1.5 million electric vehicles have been sold in California, beating the target sales by two years ahead. According to Sacramento Bee's report, California now makes up 40% of all-electric vehicles in the nation.

The target was set by former Governor Jerry Brown in 2012 when there was only one fully-electric vehicle in the California market, the Nissan Leaf. The target was to reach 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles sold in California by 2025, including battery electric, hybrid, and fuel cell EVs.

The California Energy Commission announced that through March 31, a total of 1,523,966 ZEV cars were sold, making up 21.1% of the new car sales market. 1,051,456 of those are battery-electric and the remaining vehicles are mostly PHEVS. This is just one of the many environmental targets California reaching ahead of schedule.

Gov. Newsom's Climate Advisor Lauren Sanchez stated, "When Governor Brown set this goal, people across the state and around the nation said it couldn't be done. But here in California, we make the future happen. We don't just set goals, we achieve them."

This goal was aided by a total of $2 billion in zero-emission vehicle incentives, distributed by the local government of California for the past few years. In comparison, an estimated $649 billion in explicit and implicit subsidies that fossil fuels obtain annually in the United States as a whole.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new emissions rules last week that could result in 67% of new car sales being electric in the country by 2032. The agency stopped adopting California's 2035 goals and set instead its own target to have a regulation that covers much broader technology than the existing ones.

ICE-Only Vehicles

Aside from the EV sales target, California set a planned 2035 ban on ICE-only vehicles in 2020, implemented by California's current Governor Gavin Newson. This ban was finalized only last year with a few revisions, including loosening the restrictions by allowing some PHEVs.

Norway's Efforts

Electrek reported that achieving this goal makes California ahead of Norway, which also targeted to end gas car sales by 2025. Compared to the state, Norway may take some time to completely diminish the traditional vehicles. However, ICE-only vehicles constituted less than 7% of total car sales in the country as of 2022.

The sales of ICE cars are increasing in the country, which made other companies to hastily pull their gas vehicles from the market. This includes Hyundai only giving notice for a couple of days before ending ICE car sales in the nation.