Some Stellar Performers; Many Also-Rans

We obtained an updated dataset of CHEAPR rebates by individual dealerships from the program’s inception through the end of 2020. It is all pasted below, but a couple of observations first.

There are a small number of dealers that really do great work. Unfortunately, they are not representative. If great work is defined as 100 or more rebates over this duration, these are the 6 companies that have achieved that level.

• A-1 Toyota – 167
• Richard Chevrolet – 126
• Honda of Westport – 126
• Karl Chevrolet – 122
• Lynch Toyota – 117
• Ingersoll Auto of Danbury – 101

This project originally began due to member complaints about poor dealership experiences, followed by a request: Please make a recommendation. I had anecdotal reports of dealerships that do a good job, but nothing systematic or statewide. This approach uses CHEAPR data as a proxy for EV-friendliness.

There are a few considerations to bear in mind. Not all dealers sell CHEAPR-eligible cars. The parameters of the CHEAPR program have changed over the course of the program’s life. In particular, the lowering of the MSRP cap in October 2019 causes the exclusion of some vehicles, for example, from BMW and Volvo, that were formerly eligible. The offerings of manufacturers have changed over time. The cancellation of the Chevy Volt caused a slowdown in the number of Chevrolet rebates. Hyundai has become more aggressive recently about introducing EVs. The Honda Clarity got off to a good start when it was introduced, but Honda then stopped sending it to the state (which may be changing). The new Toyota RAV4 Prime is showing some early promise.

It is for that reason that I have displayed the rebates sorted highest to lowest within make. That way, for example, it can be seen that Danbury Hyundai has a strong record with a make that was barely selling EVs before 2019.

The file that was provided did not have the specific vehicle model for which a given rebate applied. There are some dealerships that sell multiple makes that have CHEAPR-eligible vehicles. I made a judgment and assigned the dealer to the brand with the most rebates. Note to self – work on getting that next time around. Also, in a couple of cases, there may be more than one line for a dealership because the file did not have a consistent naming convention. I cleaned it but may have missed a couple.

This is all of it (except Tesla). If a dealership had zero rebates, it will not appear in the tables below.

It would be best, of course, if DEEP were to publish this information as part of its regular CHEAPR reporting. It is done in other states and would remove the burden for both of us of going through the Freedom of Information Act process.

Finally, this has relevance for the EV Freedom Bill. One of the arguments for the bill is that the conventional dealership model is antithetical to selling EVs, that EVs come into tension with the legacy ICE business. There is more nuance to it than that, but the data largely illustrate this point. It seems like it is a lot harder for a dealership to embrace EVs or more of them would have effectively done so and there wouldn’t be such large differences between the top performers and the laggards.

For those dealerships that are making an effort to sell EVs, if SB 127 passes, they’ll be fine. For the others, it will be a shot across the bow to wake up or risk being left behind.

A poll released by the Electric Vehicle (EV) Club of Connecticut shows that a significant majority of Connecticut residents support direct sales from Electric Vehicle companies. 83% of respondents support direct sales of electric vehicles to consumers, and only 17% oppose it.  Support for direct sales is bipartisan, broad, and deep across many different demographics and all sections of Connecticut.

Support for direct sales is growing throughout the state of Connecticut and nationwide. Last week, two letters were released—one from a broad coalition of 27 interest groups representing environmental, free-market, pro-innovation, labor, and consumer protection;  another from 75 leading academics—both urging state governments to remove restrictions on direct sales and service of electric vehicles. Among the academic signers of the letter were 7 former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, and one Nobel Laureate.

Transportation Committee Chair Senator Will Haskell stated, “This poll is astounding. It turns out that the Connecticut State Capitol is the only place where selling Electric Vehicles directly to consumers is controversial. It’s time for the legislature to listen to the will of the public, pave the way for 21rst Century jobs, and give consumers a choice as to where they buy their next car.”

Barry Kresch, President of the EV Club of Connecticut noted, “These results, while overwhelmingly favorable, are not a surprise. This is exactly what I hear all the time on a more informal basis. It is reflected in the fact that everyone who testified at the public hearings who was not associated with a dealership was in favor of the bill. I get asked all the time why we force people to go out of state to buy the EV of their choice. It’s time we listen to consumers, accelerate EV adoption, and embrace innovation.”

“The poll conducted by GQR is proof positive that Connecticut consumers believe in the freedom to choose how they wish to purchase their vehicles,” said James Chen, Vice President of Public Policy at Rivian Automotive. “Senate Bill 127, which would allow the direct sales of electric vehicles in the state of Connecticut would be an obvious win-win for Connecticut drivers, the free-market, and the state’s environmental goals.”

GQR conducted a survey of 500 likely 2022 general election voters in Connecticut from April 16-18, 2021. The survey was conducted via cell phones using a text-to-web platform. The margin of error is +/- 4.4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence interval; the margin of error is higher among subgroups. Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturers Lucid Motors, Rivian, and Tesla sponsored the poll.

This is the question wording: “As you may know, the Connecticut General Assembly is considering a bill to change existing laws related to vehicle sales. This bill will allow electric-vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid to open their own brick-and-mortar stores in the state, where they can sell vehicles directly to consumers rather than going through traditional car dealerships. Do you support or oppose this bill to allow direct sales from electric-vehicle manufacturers in Connecticut?”

About GQR: “For almost four decades, we have used innovative polling and opinion research to help leading candidates, parties, government leaders, corporations, and advocacy groups across the United States and around the world.”

Fleeting Model Y Rebate

February rebate data show 72 rebates awarded, totaling $59,000. January was restated and increased from 68 to 77 rebates with a total spend of $82,500.

The leading vehicle in terms of Feb. rebates was the Toyota Prius Prime, which accounted for 22 of the rebates, and was followed by the newer Toyota PHEV, the RAV4 Prime, with 11. The RAV4 has been showing early signs of life. We don’t know if the vehicle is supply constrained in CT as it is still being rolled out. These were the only two vehicles in double figures. With these two PHEVs dominating the rebates, the spend level was considerably lower than January.

The Model 3 accounted for only 2 rebates. As we have seen, the number of Model 3 rebates fluctuates wildly because only the base level is eligible for the incentive. The CHEAPR rebates don’t track with overall sales of the vehicle. There were 4 Model Y rebates which is unlikely to continue. Tesla first reduced the price of the basic Model Y, which is why some of them qualified for incentives, but it subsequently pulled the vehicle off its online configurator.

This was a tweet from Elon Musk that was published in Car and Driver. It was the sub-250 mile range that did not meet its standard of excellence. Off menu means it can still be ordered, but only by phone or in person in a showroom. It would not be surprising to see Tesla make some tweaks to the vehicle and then return it to the entrées. (UPDATE – We have heard that Tesla is not taking any new orders, not even off the menu, for the MY SR. If we are able to find out more details, we will update again.)

The CHEAPR board adopted a new incentive structure in February. The expectation was that it would become live on or about April 1. Some time was needed for the software implementation. As of this writing on 3/27, there is nary a word on the CHEAPR website, nor a peep from DEEP. Communication is not DEEP’s forte. No board meetings have been held since the new incentives were adopted and none have been announced. We are trying to find out if significant delays have been encountered.

These are the rebates by model for February:

Post by Barry Kresch

Estimates of EV Fleet Composition by Make Within City

This is something we haven’t published in a while. Not that we don’t find it interesting, but the DMV broke apart the geo from the vehicle data and has been giving it to us in a separate file. So we lost this. Their reason was that it was too close to the line of a privacy violation, that if we were to cross a low-volume vehicle with the city, someone could deduce who the owner might be. (We don’t get any personal information in our files.) While I respect their concerns, it never created any issues back when we did have it.

So I took a shot at knitting the information together and here it is. So remember: blame me, not the DMV. I was able to do a little bit of cross-referencing with the Westport Grand List and what I saw lined up nicely.

The chart at the top of the post color-codes the different makes within each city. It is easy to guess which part of the bar is Tesla, but beyond that, it can’t really be seen in a screenshot. This is now a page in the dashboard (page 19 – scroll down for page nav) and there is full interactivity. Slicers are there for both city and vehicle make. Hovering over a chart element will display the make and the count. And the profile changes quite a lot when sliced by city or make as a different socio-economic profile will be reflected in a different vehicle composition.

The two most widely registered Marques are Tesla and Toyota. Here is an excerpt of the Tesla profile:

And here is how it contrasts with Toyota, where there is less Fairfield County and more larger cities:

Sometimes it appears as if the profile could be influenced by a single dealer. Dealers are often a pain point in the EV landscape, but that is not the case for all of them. This excerpt is Audi, which, overall, has a fairly low volume. Of course, people can buy their vehicles from someplace other than where they live. But it sure seems like New Country Audi in Greenwich might be making a difference.

The same seems like it could be true of an even lower volume make, Jaguar, where Westport is over-represented. There are Jaguar dealers in Fairfield and Darien. The Fairfield dealer has been a sometime attendee at our meetings and they could be the ones making an effort with the i-Pace.

Finally, this is a close-up of a single city, in this case, Greenwich, which has the most EVs of any city in the state. The green represents the 651 Teslas there. The second most-widely registered vehicle make is Porsche with 69 EVs. This is the purple band a couple of places below Tesla. There are 969 total EVs in Greenwich, an increase of 105 over the final 6 months of the year, or 12.2%, which outpaces the rate of increase for the state as a whole.

The Equivalent Of 52% of EVs Added To The File in 2020 Turned Over

EV registrations in Connecticut increase 18.2% in 2020, a not great number in a very difficult year. However, as difficult as the year may have been, CT can be its own worst enemy with no direct sales and an underperforming purchase-incentive program. The chart below breaks this into the first vs second half of the year, clearly showing the effect of the lockdown followed by a modest recovery.

In January 2020, there were 11,677 EVs registered in the state. 4408 vehicles were added to the file over the course of the year. But we ended the year at 13,800. In other words, there were 2285 EVs that left the file. The numbers varied considerably by brand. Tesla had the lowest percentage of the major brands with the equivalent of 33% of the incoming vehicles turning over. Honda had the highest percentage, and off-the-charts 462%. Which makes sense, since Honda basically stopped selling its one plug-in model, the PHEV Clarity, in 2019. (We hear it is coming back.) As cars were sold or leases expired, no replacements were entering the fleet. This table lists the top makes, ranked by the number of EVs registered on January 1, 2021.

The same data drives the chart at the top of the post. Each of the components is its own bar. The table and the bar chart come from the EV Dashboard, where they have full interactivity and slicers.

The obvious question is why the differences. We can try to infer. Some of it may have to do with leasing. A dealer on the CHEAPR board meetings reports that leasing is 50% of his new car business. That is higher than the national norms we’ve seen in Statista and other sources, but there is no doubt that leasing is big. Tesla came late to leasing and has yet to offer a buy-out option. And their cars have longevity. It is quite possible that a higher percentage of buyers equates to lower turnover.

One comment mentioned by a dealer during a CHEAPR board meeting bears repeating. This person said that a significant portion of EV leasing customers coming to the end of their lease return to ICE in order to save money, especially given that they cannot get another CHEAPR incentive due to the program’s once per lifetime limit. His suggestion: allow leasing customers to get the incentive twice but cut it by 50%. It’s a thoughtful suggestion and would also have the benefit of lowering the program’s burn rate for 2-3 years until it normalizes.

Aside from leasing, there is sales volume. Chevrolet and Ford, which are the largest brands with net negative registrations (i.e. turnover in excess of 100%) similarly suffer from a variation of what is happening with Honda, namely cancellation of nameplates coupled with a lack of other sales volume to replace the departing vehicles. In the case of Chevy, the near-term recovery plan is a redesigned and lower-priced Bolt and a reasonably priced EUV Bolt variation. We’ll know at the end of the year how these will have fared. Ford, on the other hand, has what may be a significant win with the Mach-E, the EV crossover Mustang. There is a limited production run in 2021, which has been reportedly sold out (with dealers tacking on extra markup as reported in Carbuzz.com).

Similarly, the 99% BMW turnover and the 84% Nissan turnover indicate stasis. On the flip side, low turnover from Hyundai, Porsche, Volvo, and Audi could indicate some renewed vigor. Sales volume for the Audi is currently very low, but an ultra-premium brand like Porsche, placing in 9th position, indicates some success in a niche market. However, there are a lot of cars vying for this small segment, with the new Tesla Model S Plaid, for which it is too soon to have registration data,  the presumptive early favorite.

CHEAPR Rebates Continue at Low Rate

January has generally been a slow month in our tracking of EV purchase incentives, and it continues in the same vein with 68 rebates, per the latest data release from DEEP. The arrow on the above chart indicates when the program parameters were last changed.

With only the base trim level Tesla Model 3 eligible, it nonetheless had the highest number of rebates with 24. This was followed by the Toyota Prius Prime at 11 and the Toyota RAV4 Prime with 10. These were the only vehicles in double digits.

The Reappearing Honda Clarity?

There were 2 rebates for the Honda Clarity, a PHEV that was introduced in 2018 and sold fairly well out of the gate, but which had disappeared off the charts, reportedly due to Honda no longer bringing the car into the state. Net registrations for this model have been declining for the past two years as vehicles are sold or have leases expire and new ones don’t replace them. We had a member send us a copy of his correspondence with a Honda dealer who said that they could not get one for him and suggested buying an Accord (conventional) hybrid instead. Recently, we were alerted by a social media post that this may be changing, so perhaps this is an early indicator.

All January rebates for each model are listed below:

UPDATE: We corresponded with Honda of Westport and it seems the car is indeed returning, backed with a renewed push from Honda.

The map in the top image shows the number of EVs by city reflected by the size of the circle.

Most EVs Located in Fairfield County

The largest concentration of EVs remains in the southwestern part of the state, specifically Fairfield County with 41% of all EVs in the state. This is similar to past waves of data.

The top cities in terms of raw numbers of EVs remain Greenwich, Stamford, and Westport with 969, 660, 579 respectively.

Westport remains number one per capita, followed by Weston and Greenwich.

This is the trend by city of the past 18 months. The largest increase in this wave was seen in Greenwich.

Updated CT EV Registration Files

Post by Barry Kresch

2020 was a difficult year to say the least with overall domestic automobile sales sliding 15% from 2019. Against that background, EV registrations in CT (a related, but different, metric) edged up 18.2% to 13,800 EVs of all stripes. EVs are defined the way they are by the state as battery electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrids (PHEV), battery electric motorcycles (BEMC), and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). The growth rate was slower than in the prior two years, which were 25.7% and 47.8% respectively. It is roughly that last rate of growth from 2 years ago that is needed on a consistent basis if the state is to hit the goal in the Zero Emission Vehicle Memorandum of Understanding. At this rate, CT falls further behind every year.

BEVs Lead the Way

BEVs led the way with a 28% increase, followed by PHEVs up 7.5%. There are only 24 BEMCs and 3 FCEVs, the latter of which are not currently available to buy or lease in the state.

PHEV growth has flattened since 2019.

Tesla Again Leads By a Wide Margin

The chart below is an excerpt of the makes with the largest number of registered vehicles. Tesla continues robust growth (and they’re not allowed to open stores here, why???). Astonishingly, there is no other manufacturer with a strong increase. There are some that modestly increased (Toyota, Volvo, Audi, Subaru, Nissan), others that are basically flat (most), and a few major players that posted declines (Chevrolet, Ford, Honda). This is a decline in net registrations. It is a function of how many cars they sold versus the turnover in the existing base. Chevy is seeing older Volts exit the file. Honda has stopped trying to sell the Clarity in CT. There could be a change next year for Ford depending on deliveries of the Mustang Mach-E.

Tesla was responsible for 47% of the vehicles entering the file.

This brought its net share to 43%, up from 40% in July.

This trend is most dramatically illustrated in this growth contribution waterfall chart, which takes the YOY difference in registrations by make and divides it by total net new registrations. This reflects both positive and negative contributions.

Watch this space. More to come…..

CHEAPR Rebate Data Released for December 2020

The EV purchase incentive program awarded 74 rebates in December. This is slightly higher than the 40 from November, but of a piece with what we have been seeing over the past 14 months since the program changes. There is typically a jump in December as federal tax-credit eligible vehicles are acquired before the year-end. That bump is a bit smaller nowadays since it is no longer applicable for Tesla or General Motors.

The October 2019 program changes were a lowering of the vehicle eligibility MSRP cap from $50 to $42 thousand and a lowering of incentive levels.

The monthly numbers rise and fall mostly driven by the number of rebates for the Tesla Model 3, despite the fact only the most basic trim level is eligible. Actually, that has been true ever since the Model 3 began ramping deliveries, which predates the 10/19 program changes. This may be less the case going forward as reports are that the Model Y is outselling the Model 3. The Y will qualify for CHEAPR if it is the base model with zero changes, and so it is not expected to push that many rebates. There have been zero to date.

The Model 3 accounted for 29 rebates in December. There was only one other model in double digits, the Toyota RAV 4 Prime (PHEV) with 13. We do not know if this is a supply constrained car, but there are early signs that it could be a successful model.

Final Totals for 2020

There were a total of 663 rebates handed out in 2020. This compares to 1605 in 2019. However, the better comparison is arguably the 12 months ending September 2019 to look at the impact pre and post program change. If we look at Q4 2018 through Q3 2019, there were 1832 rebates.

Since both the quantity and size of rebates were reduced, the program only spent $708,500 (plus admin and dealer incentive costs) against a budget of $3 million.

DEEP has advised that unspent funds will be rolled over. That is better than losing them but not as good as getting more EVs on the road sooner.

Below is a chart of rebates by vehicle model by month since the program’s inception through 2020. The light blue line across the top is the total monthly number of rebates, the same number as in the chart at the top of the post, and the drop-off beginning in late 2019 is readily apparent. The other lines are individual vehicle models.

The dark blue line that spikes in 2018 and 2019 is the Model 3.

The yellow line that spiked briefly in late 2018 is the Honda Clarity PHEV, which is an interesting case. The car was well-received, customers were buying, and then it seems to have done a vanishing act off dealer lots in CT. There was reporting that Honda had pulled back and was using it as a compliance car. We received this communication from a recent EV shopper, a flavor of the switch pitch that is unfortunately so common. The note from the dealer indicates lack of availability, but the CHEAPR rebate graph clearly shows a dearth of sales (there were zero rebates in Q4, 2020). Translation: Honda isn’t bringing these vehicles into the state.

When the program changes were made in late 2019, the Model 3 numbers dropped (along with some other, smaller volume vehicles losing eligibility altogether, e.g. the BMW i3).

CHEAPR Directionless

For over a year, there has been a notice on the CHEAPR website that a new set of program revisions will be forthcoming. This hasn’t happened. A newly authorized board met in January 2020, then monthly meetings from July through December, but no meetings since and none posted. DEEP indicated that it may have the board vote offline. We then heard there was a vote, which as far as we know was 2 or 3 weeks ago, but no word has been forthcoming. There were as many scenarios as there are board members, so consensus may still be elusive. The scenarios include an income-limited used EV incentive and a similarly income-limited supplemental incentive. The board has been divided about the MSRP cap and incentive levels, which is what we assume is delaying matters. Hopefully, it will get sorted soon as the program is severely under-performing.

At the very least, there should be some communication. We assume that the as yet unreleased January data will be as low-performing as the past year plus.

It is the position of the EV Club that previous incentive levels should be restored (or something similar), the MSRP cap should be restored to $50,000, and the used and supplemental incentives should be included. The fact that there is roughly $5.2 million in funds for 2021 should cover it, and it will provide valuable data going forward for future program modeling.

We Suggest a Website Improvement

The CHEAPR website was clearly not designed with a consumer in mind. To actually learn about the rules, one has to comb through the FAQs. There is no front door that has the basics of the program: incentive levels, MSRP restrictions, once per driver per lifetime, and other pertinent rules. DEEP could accomplish this with something as simple as adding another element to the left nav, preferably near the top, called program basics (or similar) that links to a page with this top-level information.

We have tried to partly compensate with an incentives page on this website. And, oh yeah, that phantom $5000 incentive should go behind the curtain.

DMV Releases Updated EV Registration Data

There are 13,800 EVs registered in CT as of January 1, 2021, according to data released by the Department of Motor Vehicles in its statutorily required semi-annual reporting. This represents an increase of 18.2% over the 11,677 EVs registered in January 2020. This is a lower rate of growth relative to 2020 over 2019, when it was 25.7% (and way lower than Jan 2019 over Jan 2018, when it was 45.8%). The featured image at the top of the post contains the number of registered EVs for each data point that we have obtained from the DMV. This began in 2017 with annual updates, then moving to semi-annual updates in 2019.

The pandemic induced lockdown and severe recession led to highly restrained growth of 8.1% during the first half of the year. Things picked up a little in the latter half of 2020 when the rate was 10.1%.

A total of 4,408 EVs were added to the file in 2020. This means that there was turnover of 2,285 vehicles.

Briefly, the DMV is reporting a snapshot of registrations. Vehicles can be added to the file as a result of the acquisition of a new vehicle, a used vehicle, or someone moving into the state who already owns an EV. Vehicles can leave the file due to the owner selling the car, having an expiring lease, or moving out of state.

The DMV has only reported these top line numbers as of the date of this publication. Subsequently, we will receive more detailed data including fuel type, city, make, and model. The diagnostic details are what really tell the story.

We do not have the “full file” of all vehicles and so we are not able to say how EVs trended relative to ICE vehicles. There has been reporting that EV sales have generally held up a little better, but we can’t comment on CT specifically.

The state continues to lose ground with respect to the goals articulated in the Multi-State ZEV Action Plan Memorandum of Understanding. I have updated the needed compounded annual growth rate chart, and the curve is going in the wrong direction. In this case, up means we’re down. As of January 1, a CAGR of 49.02% would be required to reach 500,000 EVs by 2030. This is up from 47.29% in July and 45.6% one year ago.