During Q1 2022, California had a battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales share of 15.78%, 4.53 percentage points higher than the state’s regular hybrid sales share of 11.25%, according to analysis from EVAdoption of data from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation – Advanced Technology Vehicle Sales Dashboard and IHS Market and Hedges & Co.
California was the only state with a higher BEV sales share versus hybrid sales share during the quarter, with Hawaii coming close with a net difference of 0.46 percentage points. The difference for the US overall was 3.02 percentage points with an HEV sales share of 7.92% and BEV sales share of 4.90%.
After California and Hawaii, the next top three states with the best BEV versus hybrids sales share were Nevada (-1.23%), Colorado (-1.72%), New Jersey (-1.86%). The bottom five states with greatest percentage point differences were Wyoming (-7.49%), Idaho (-7.27%), Alaska (-6.67%), Indiana (-6.12%), and Maine (-6.02%).
Among these 10 top and bottom ranking states, there is a 4.75 percentage point difference between California’s hybrid sales share of 11.25% and Hawaii’s 6.50%. For BEV sales share, however, the difference between California’s 15.78% and Wyoming’s 1.34% is 14.44 percentage points. And the difference between California and Louisiana, the state with the lowest BEV sales share at 0.41% is an astounding 15.37 percentage points.
While gas prices in the US have been declining from their recent highs, they remain well above recent averages. So it will be an interesting barometer to track which powertrain types — BEV, regular hybrid, and even PHEV — benefit most both nationally and in various states. It is very likely that we will see consumers in states with lower median household incomes and/or extreme winters overweight on purchases of regular hybrids, whereas higher-income states and those with moderate climates will likely adopt BEVs at a faster rate than regular hybrids.
