EV sales still rising at 22.3% in CA, Tesla cedes lead back to Toyota
EV sales continue to rise steadily in California, reaching a record 22.3% market share in Q3. But Tesla has returned to its position as second-best selling brand in the state, behind longtime leader Toyota, after briefly eclipsing the brand last quarter.
The California New Car Dealers’ Association releases its “California Auto Outlook” each quarter, breaking down trends in the auto industry for the previous quarter. It’s out with its new Q3 report today and we’re going to break it down for some insights.
As has been the trend for the last several years, EV sales continued to rise in California. They started the year at 20.5% in Q1, then 21.8% in Q2, and 22.3% in Q3. So this quarter’s rise was a little slower than the last, but still a new record in the state.
It means that California will likely exit the year with a BEV run rate of around 23%, which is slightly down from our expectation of around 25%+. But still significantly up from the 9% of 2021 and 17% of 2022. And pure-ICE market share has dropped in the same timeframe, to 64.6% YTD in 2023 from 71.6% in 2022.
Comparatively, the US had an EV market share of 7.9% in Q3, putting California EV sales about 3x higher than the country’s average (especially if you take California out of the national data, as the state pulls the national average up).
Accounting further for Plug-in Hybrids, more than 1/4 of California’s new car registrations had a plug in Q3. Adding conventional hybrids and fuel cell vehicles to the mix, more than 1/3 – 37.3% – are “alternative fuel vehicles.”
Hybrid and EV sales continued to rise in Q3, but plug-in hybrid sales continued to hover around 3%.
Total new EV registrations actually dropped in California in Q3 as compared to Q2, with 100,597 new EVs registered versus 103,061 in the previous quarter. But overall auto sales dropped by a larger amount, meaning EVs were a higher share of sold vehicles. This is due to the seasonality of car sales – compared to Q3 of last year, overall auto sales are up 21.1%, and BEV sales are up 56.3%.
But one interesting battle being fought in California recently is between Toyota and Tesla for top dog in the leading state for EV adoption and in the state of Tesla’s birth. Toyota has long held the position as #1 brand, and the Toyota Camry had been the best-selling vehicle in California in many years until the Model 3 (and then the Model Y) unseated it. This has earned the Model 3 the nickname “California Camry” based on how common it is on CA roads.
While Tesla had unseated Toyota for the best-selling model, Toyota still maintained position of top-selling brand, as the latter sells a much broader base of models compared to Tesla’s smaller set of model offerings. But in Q2, we noticed that Tesla had narrowly outsold Toyota for the first time, based on the incredible strength of Model 3 and Model Y sales, which were (and remain) the best-selling models in the state by a ridiculous margin.
But in Q3, Toyota came back and earned the top spot again. Toyota sold 70,314 vehicles (compared to 67,482 in Q2) and Tesla sold 60,061 (compared to 69,212 in Q2). This is in keeping with Tesla’s overall down quarter in deliveries, though sales still improved significantly compared to Q3 of last year.
As a result, Toyota is now ahead of Tesla by about 20,000 vehicles year-to-date, meaning that Tesla is unlikely to become the best-selling brand for all of 2023. But the company is still comfortably in second-place, with about a 50,000 vehicle advantage over Honda year-to-date.
And Tesla still dominates the best-selling vehicle list and nobody else even close, at 106,398 and 66,698 units each so far this year. The Toyota RAV4 and Camry are running so far back that they may as well be in a different race, at 40,622 and 39,293 units each.
Other quick insights from the report include: continued strong sales growth for Rivian, which has the largest percent increase year-to-date at 176.8%; a new breakdown of top-selling BEV and PHEV sales which shows the Wrangler 4xe to be the fourth-most-popular vehicle with a plug in the state, behind Model Y/3 and the Chevy Bolt; BEV share of 25.7% YTD in Northern California, as compared to 21.1% in Southern California (pick up the pace IE, OC and LA can’t carry everyone); and a 103% increase in sales of BEVs at franchised dealerships (namely, traditional auto companies) year-to-date, compared to just a 42% increase in BEV sales from direct sellers (namely, the EV startups).
Electrek’s Take
We like looking at this data each quarter because California tends to lead the rest of the nation on trends and adoption of new technologies, and this has always been the case in EV sales.
A couple years ago, California was down at 7% new EV sales, but the rest of the country was selling 2% or so. Now, the country is at 7%, and California is at 22%.
So if you want a sense of where the nation will be in a couple years, this is data worth looking at.
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GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
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While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
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There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
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