Tesla sold one out of every 8 cars in California in 2023, 21.4% EV share
California hit a new record last year with 21.4% of new cars being all-electric, and once again Tesla led the pack with the two best-selling cars in the state, the Tesla Model Y and Tesla Model 3. But Toyota narrowly maintained its leadership as the top-selling brand in the state, with Tesla nipping at its heels.
The data was released yesterday by the California New Car Dealer’s Association (CNCDA) in their quarterly Auto Outlook. This was the Q4 and full-year report, reflecting on trends in auto sales for the full year in the state that leads the US in EV sales.
Compared to a national market share of 7.5%, EVs commanded 21.4% of sales in California. But just a couple years ago, California was down at ~7% of new EV sales, while the rest of the country was at ~2% – so we like to check in on CNCDA’s data every quarter to get a look at where the trends for the rest of the country might be going soon.
But California’s share of nationwide BEV registrations was down. Not long ago, California accounted for more than half of the EVs in the United States, but in 2023 California accounted for 33.8% of US BEV sales. This means that the rest of the country is picking up pace in EV sales, and that EVs are no longer the sole purview of California. This is an expected trend, but a welcome one – we don’t need California to keep hogging all the health benefits of EVs.
Leading the pack, as expected, were Tesla’s vehicles. The Model Y and Model 3 both outsold the competition by a wide margin – with Model 3 holding a 15.3% share in passenger cars (a 61% lead over the Toyota Camry, which had previously been the best-seller in California for decades) and Model Y holding a 10.8% share in light trucks, more than double its highest challenger, the RAV4, with a 4.7% share.
However, since Tesla only has a few models and Toyota has many, Toyota still maintained the crown for most sales in California. Toyota had a 15.7% market share for the whole year, and Tesla had a 13% market share, with Honda in third place at 9.7%.
13% means that one out of every 8 vehicles sold in California last year was a Tesla – from a company in just its 15th year of selling cars anywhere. Earlier in the year, it even looked like Tesla might be able to beat Toyota in California, as Tesla did outsell Toyota in Q2, but Toyota took back the crown in Q3 and maintained it in Q4.
One particularly interesting graph in the report is the share of alternative powertrain vehicles by type of dealership – Direct or Franchised. In this case, “Direct” refers to dealerships owned by the automaker in question, the vast majority of these sales coming from Tesla.
But in the chart we can see an increasing number of BEVs being sold by franchised dealers, as other manufacturers have finally gotten their BEV programs off the ground and are now selling a variety of vehicles, many of which only hit the market in the last model year or two. A majority of BEVs were still sold direct, but franchised dealer sales are catching up.
Between BEVs, PHEVs, and FCEVs, a full quarter of vehicles could access some sort of dedicated non-combustive energy source. Adding hybrids into the mix (you know, the cars that Toyota loves to pretend are electric, even though they aren’t), 35.9% of vehicles had an electric motor in them.
This was on the back of a tick down in EV share quarter over quarter, from 22.3% to 21.1%, and a tick up in hybrid share, from 11.7% to 13.3%. Plug-in hybrid share held roughly steady at 3.6%, up from 3.4%. Plug-in hybrids were buoyed by the exceptional popularity of the Jeep Wrangler PHEV, which is the 4th-best-selling car in the state with a plug on it, behind the two Teslas and the outgoing Chevy Bolt. The Wrangler PHEV outsold the RAV4 Prime almost two to one.
Tesla maintained its position as one of the companies with the best sales growth over the course of the year, up 24.6% from the previous year. Though this level of growth was lower than it has been in the past. With Tesla already being well established in California, it’s inevitable that growth percentages will slow down over time – or perhaps California, moreso than other states, is getting tired of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s nonsense.
Tesla’s share of California’s BEV market dropped from 71% to 60.5%, another expected result of other vehicles entering the market. This was still higher than Tesla’s share of the overall US EV market, which stood at around 55% for the year.
But the winner in terms of sales growth was Rivian, which saw a 142.7% increase year over year. Big numbers like this are to be expected out of a new company with new models, but Rivian’s ramp up in production and sales this year was impressive nonetheless, with the company even raising (and then beating) production guidance during a year when media spent a lot of time falsely claiming that EV sales were down.
And on that point – in 2022, EVs made up 16.4% of the EV market in California, whereas in 2023 they made up 21.4%. That certainly looks like an increase to me, not a decrease. Meanwhile, one media narrative we haven’t heard much of is how ICE car sales actually are not growing. While auto sales as a whole were up in California by 11.9% in 2023, that’s because 190k more “electrified” vehicles (BEV/PHEV/HEV) were sold in 2023 than 2022, for a 2023 total of ~638k, whereas sales of pure combustion vehicles were flat at ~1.1 million. So in a year where the auto industry saw a significant recovery, most of that recovery, at least in California, was led by rising electric vehicle sales.
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The e-bike industry in the West has long been a tale of two territories. North Americans enjoy higher speeds and power limits for their electric bicycles while Europeans are held to much stricter (i.e. slower and lower) speed and power limits. However, things might change based on current discussions on rewriting European e-bike regulations.
New power levels are not totally without precedent, either. The UK briefly considered doubling its own e-bike power limit from 250 watts (approximately 1/3 horsepower) to 500 watts, though the move was ultimately abandoned.
But this time, the call for more power is coming from within the house – i.e., Germany. The Germans are the undisputed leaders and trend setters in the European e-bike market, accounting for around two million sales of e-bikes per year. Home to leading e-bike drive makers like Bosch, the country has yet another advantage when it comes to making – or regulating – waves in the industry.
And while there aren’t any pending law changes, the largest German trade organization ZIV (Zweirad-Industrie-Verband), which is highly influential in achieving such changes, is now discussing what it believes could be pertinent updates to current EU electric bike regulations.
Some of the new regulations involve creating rules maxing out power at levels such as 400% or 600% of the human pedaling input. But a key component of the proposed plan includes changing the present day power limit of e-bikes from 250W of continuous power at the motor to 750W of peak power at the drive wheel.
The difference includes some nuance, since continuous power is often considered more of a nominal figure, meaning nearly every e-bike motor in Europe wears a “250W” or less sticker despite often outputting a higher level of peak power. Even Bosch, which has to walk the tight and narrow as a leader in the European e-bike drive market, shared that its newest models of motors are capable of peak power ratings in the 600W level. That’s still far from the commonly 1,000W to 1,300W peak power seen in US e-bike motors, but offers a nice boost over an actual 250W motor.
Other new regulations up for discussion include proposals to limit fully-loaded cargo e-bike weights to either 250 kg (550 lb) for two-wheelers or 300 kg (660 lb) for e-bikes with more than two wheels. As road.cc explained, ZIV also noted that, “separate framework conditions and parameters must be defined for cargo bikes weighing more than 300 kg (see EN 17860-4:2025) as they differ significantly from EPACs and bicycles in their dynamics, design and operation.” Such heavy-duty cargo e-bikes, which often more closely resemble small delivery vans than large cargo bikes, are becoming more common in the industry and have raised concerns about cargo e-bike bloat, especially in dedicated cycling paths.
It’s too early to say whether European e-bike regulations will actually change, but the fact that key industry voices with the power to influence policy are openly advocating for it suggests that new rules for the European market are a real possibility.
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China just laid out a plan to roll out over 100,000 ultra-fast EV charging stations by 2027 – and they’ll all be open to the public.
The National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) joint notice, issued on Monday, asks local authorities to put together construction plans for highway service areas and prioritize the ones that see 40% or more usage during holiday travel rushes.
The NDRC notes that China’s ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure needs upgrading as more 800V EVs hit the road. Those high-voltage platforms can handle super-fast charging in as little as 10 to 30 minutes, but only if the charging hardware is up to speed.
China had 31.4 million EVs on the road at the end of 2024 – nearly 9% of the country’s total vehicle fleet. But charging access is still catching up. As of May 2025, there were 14.4 million charging points, or roughly 1 for every 2.2 EVs.
To keep the grid running smoothly, China wants new chargers to be smart, with dynamic pricing to incentivize off-peak charging and solar and storage to power the charging stations.
To make the business side work, the government is pushing for 10-year leases for charging station operators, and it’s backing the buildout with local government bonds.
The NDRC emphasized that the DC fast chargers built will be open to the public. This is a big deal because a lot of fast chargers in China aren’t. For example, BYD’s new megawatt chargers aren’t open to third-party vehicles.
As of September 2024, China had expanded its charging infrastructure to 11.4 million EV chargers, but only 3.3 million were public.
Read more: California now has nearly 50% more EV chargers than gas nozzles
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