California has reached a record of 22% market share for battery-electric vehicles (BEV) and over 40% if you account for PHEVs and HEVs.
Tesla has been responsible for much of California’s EV leadership, but the automaker is now down in the important EV market.
Battery-electric vehicles (BEV) are now hitting an all-time record of 22.2% market share in the state – more than twice the national BEV market share:
Tesla has been largely responsible for this growth up to 2023, but this stopped in 2024.
According to the CNCDA data, Tesla’s sales are down 12.6% year-to-date:
To be fair, overall car sales are down 1.7% in the state year-to-date, but Tesla’s sales are certainly down more than the average and BEV sales are still growing.
CNCDA commented on the situation:
This marks a full year of registration declines for Tesla in California, leaving the “alternative powertrain door” open for traditional automakers. Manufacturers and dealers have embraced this shift, expanding their share of battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales to 40.2 percent as consumers increasingly turn to exciting, new electric vehicle (EV) options.
Despite Tesla’s slowdown in sales, the automaker still has 4 vehicles in the top 10 best-selling EVs in the state, and the Model Y is undoubtedly in a league of its own:
Rank
Model
Type
Regs.
1
Tesla Model Y
BEV
105,693
2
Tesla Model 3
BEV
37,219
3
Hyundai Ioniq 5
BEV
11,711
4
Ford Mustang Mach-E
BEV
8,013
5
Toyota RAV4
PHEV
7,805
6
Tesla Model X
BEV
7,312
7
BMW i4
BEV
6,667
8
Tesla Cybertruck
BEV
6,349
9
Rivian R1S
BEV
6,279
10
Jeep Wrangler
PHEV
6,277
But at the end of the day, BEVs are still growing in the state despite Tesla’s sales going down and broader car sales also being down.
Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 and Ford’s Mustang Mach-E are picking up some of Tesla’s slack.
Tesla is not the only EV manufacturer having issues in California. We can see BEV sales from Chevy, Polestar, Porsche VW, and Volvo crashing:
However, Chevy’s crash was due to the transition away from the Bolt EV. Sales should start to pick up with new EVs launching through the brand.
GM is also seeing its GMC brand’s BEV sales surge.
In the luxury BEV segments, most are doing well, aside from Tesla, with Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus all seeing double-digit percentage increases.
Rivian is also doing well, with a 35% increase in deliveries in California.
But to be fair to Tesla, those increases are all on relatively low volumes of deliveries last year while Tesla delivered a record 182,000 electric vehicles in the state in 2023 – more than all other automakers combined.
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On today’s episode of Quick Charge, I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that, as a trusted media personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves cobalt mines.
We’ve also got the world’s quickest police pursuit vehicle, an Amnesty International report highlighting Tesla and Mercedes’ efforts to improve worker conditions in the Congo, and an exploration of Trump voters’ love for solar power.
Today’s episode is sponsored by BLUETTI, a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems. For a limited time, save up to 50% during BLUETTI’s exclusive Black Friday pre-sale, now through November 11. Learn more by clicking here.
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Donald Trump will push fossil fuels and undo renewable energy policies, but it ultimately won’t stop clean energy’s momentum.
Trump has always pushed for more oil drilling and fewer regulations, left the Paris Agreement in his first term as president, says he hates “windmills,” promised to scrap offshore wind on “day one” if he won the 2024 election, and calls climate change a “scam.” And now that he’s won, this is a direct threat to the US’s pledge to reach net zero by 2050. After all, federal policy directly impacts the pace of renewable energy growth, especially when it comes to incentives and research funding.
The Biden administration’s groundbreaking Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has spurred a clean energy boom, will be challenged under Trump. Because Republican states have received 80% of the IRA’s money with which they’ve built factories and created thousands of jobs, a complete IRA repeal is unlikely. What’s more probable is that the Republicans phase out tax credits earlier than planned or cap overall funding.
Federal financial support for innovative technologies and projects could also take a hit. Brendan Bell, COO of Aligned Climate Capital, who formerly led the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, told Electrek:
My partner Peter and I led the DOE Loan Program Office under President Obama. We supported the first utility-scale solar and storage projects, as well as early EV investments – including the first loan to Tesla.
Today, these technologies are commercialized and are propelling the clean energy transition. None of it would have been possible if these programs had been cut off 10 years ago.
Put simply, Trump can’t turn back the tide of clean energy – but he could delay tomorrow’s solutions and the birth of new industries.
BloombergNEF’s “2H 2024 US Clean Energy Market Outlook,” released at the end of October, examined the worst-case scenario, where control of both the Senate and the House leads to a full repeal of the IRA tax credits:
The wind, solar, and energy storage sectors jointly see a 17% drop in total new capacity additions over 2025-2035, with 927 gigawatts (GW) of cumulative build compared to 1,118GW in BNEF’s base case forecast. Wind sees the greatest fall in activity in this scenario with a 35% drop, followed by energy storage at 15% and solar at 13% relative to BNEF’s base case.
That’s a blow we can’t afford at a time when we need to reduce emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 to avoid climate disasters becoming even worse than they already are.
But all is not lost. The clean energy market isn’t solely driven by federal policy. Over the last decade, solar, wind, and EVs have become more cost-competitive and popular. State policies play a huge role too, and many states are committed to their own clean energy goals regardless of who sits in the White House. States like California, New York, and Washington have ambitious targets to combat climate change, and deep red Texas is No. 1 in the US for both solar and wind.
Corporations are also key players. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Walmart have committed to going 100% renewable, and they’re not about to reverse course. This demand keeps the market for renewables strong. Plus, there’s significant public support for clean energy jobs, and renewables create more employment opportunities than fossil fuels in many regions of the country.
JD Dillon, chief marketing officer of California-based solar tech manufacturer Tigo Energy (Nasdaq: TYGO), said to Electrek, “The march toward renewable clean energy is both inevitable and the right thing to do. In a perfect world, we would eliminate partisanship from the renewable energy conversation because everyone benefits from a cleaner environment and affordable energy. Unfortunately, none of us live in said perfect world.”
The US clean energy sector may slow down, but it’s hard to stop a train that has already left the station. What consequences this slower-moving train will have for the US and the world remains to be seen.
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The world’s largest EV battery maker is advancing a new type of battery, promising higher energy density. According to a new local report, CATL is investing heavily while ramping up its workforce to bring all-solid-state EV batteries to market.
With trial production reportedly kicking off, we could see CATL launch all-solid-state EV batteries sooner than expected.
According to a new local report from LatePost (via CnEVPost), CATL has entered the trial production phase of 20 Ah samples. The news comes after the EV battery giant added over 1,000 workers to its R&D team this year.
The report claimed that CATL is now focused on the final Sulfide phase and has already commenced trial production of 20 Ah samples.
The company’s solution has an energy density of up to 500 Wh/kg for lithium ternary batteries, 40% more than current batteries. However, the report said charging speed and cycle life are not quite where they need to be.
At 20 Ah, the battery solution is finalized and ready for its next stage, production tech exploration.
CATL is advancing all-solid-state EV batteries
The report says after that it’s mainly manufacturing hurdles, that can be overcome with a bigger workforce.
In April, CATL’s chief scientist, Wu Kai, announced that the company had developed a verification platform for 10 Ah all-solid-state EV battery cells. Wu also said CATL aimed to produce all-solid-state EV batteries in small volumes in 2027, the first time the news was made public.
In September, the company’s chairman, Robin Zeng, said CATL’s research into the new battery tech was “second to none.”
Several companies, including Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and others, are betting on solid-state EV batteries as the future.
According to data from CnEVPost, CATL is dominating the global EV battery market with a 36.7% share through September 2024.
China’s BYD is second with a 16.4% share of the market. BYD is also planning to launch solid-state batteries. At the September 2024 World New Energy Congress, BYD’s head scientist and engineer, Lian Yubo, said solid-state EV batteries could be widely used in five years.
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