The club supports various EV showcase events as they have been a proven way to spread the word about EVs.

Attendees from the general public who are interested in EVs can have a conversation with an owner about their real-life experience owning a plug-in vehicle and not be in a pressured sales environment. It is ideal for someone who is anywhere from early in the learning curve to the point where they may be focusing on the fine points between a couple of vehicles they have narrowed their search to as they get close to making a purchase decision. Customer experiences at dealerships (excluding Tesla) can vary wildly, with some dealerships embracing EVs and having a knowledgeable staff to others which can be indifferent or hostile. This is a great way to arm oneself with important knowledge. These events are also a great way to interact with media or politicians who are often present.

Our experience as EV-owners at numerous events of this nature is that most people still don’t know much about EVs or the types of models available.

WE SEEK EV-OWNER CLUB MEMBERS to bring their EVs to one or more of these events. Please email WestportEVClub@gmail.com if you are interested in participating. We will follow up with details.

AVANGRID COMPANY FAIR

Expected attendance ~400. This is a fair for Avangrid employees. Avangrid has recently been buying Chevy Bolts to use for their corporate fleet. The CEO will give a short talk on the advantages of EVs from a corporate perspective.

TIME/LOCATION – Tuesday, August 7, 11:30 AM – 2 PM. The event will be held at Avangrid HQ at 180 Marsh Hill Road, Orange, CT.

There is a barbecue and attendees will be served lunch. This is a short lead time. RSVP by Friday, August 3 if interested.

NATIONAL DRIVE ELECTRIC WEEK

The club is participating in the local NDEW event in Fairfield. This is a combo EV Showcase and Ride and Drives. There is a mix of EV owners as well as dealers who participate. The Ride and Drives are only done by the dealers. There will also be speakers. Turnout at these events has been good, both from the perspective of EV owners and spectators. EV owners can come for just a part of it. Those interested, please register here

TIME/LOCATION – Saturday, September 8, 10 AM – 2 PM. Fairfield Warde High School (under the new solar carports), 755 Melville Avenue, Fairfield, CT

CLIMATE REALITY PRESENTATION + EV EVENT

Club board member Dawn Henry will be giving the latest iteration of the Climate Reality Presentation (the Al Gore slide show). She is a certified presenter. Following the CR presentation, there will be a talk about EV basics followed by an EV showcase.

TIME/LOCATION – Thursday, September 20, 4:30 PM – 7 PM. Westport Senior Center, 21 Imperial Avenue, Westport, CT

SUSTAINABLE LIVING EXPO

Expected attendance ~1000. There is an EV showcase that is held in conjunction with this event.

TIME/LOCATION – Saturday, October 13, 12 PM – 2 PM. Stepping Stones Museum, Norwalk, CT.

Leadership Transition

Club founder, Leo Cirino, has stepped down as club president. Leo was widely recognized for his tireless and effective advocacy for clean transportation and received multiple awards from area organizations. Leo will be the first club President Emeritus and was presented with a plaque during the club news conference of April 21. The new club president is Bruce Becker. ​

Leo, who is a forward-thinker when it comes to clean transportation and vehicle electrification, founded the club in 2009, the first EV club in Connecticut. During his tenure, the club worked on numerous projects to showcase EVs, educate the public, and develop charging facilities. It could be why Westport has the highest EVs per capita of any town in the state.

Updated EV Dashboard

The EV Interactive Dashboard is now updated. There are now 2 years of data represented in the model: February 2018 and March 2018. The data are a snapshot from these two points in time.

This comes to us from the CT Department of Motor Vehicles. Club President Bruce Becker filed a Freedom of Information Act to obtain it. The file includes every vehicle registered in the state of Connecticut.

A few words about the dataset.

There is no personal information. The fields that are given to us are make, model, model year, city, and fuel type. There is no plug-in hybrid (PHEV) fuel type in the file. We build that from the vehicle model. We then overlay census data that allows us to consolidate cities to counties, incorporate median household income by city, and calculate per capita stats.

To reinforce a couple of key points, the data in the file are not vehicle sales; it is the current vehicle fleet in the state of CT. It doesn’t matter if someone owns, leases, bought new or used. The year is the model year of the registered vehicle and should not be interpreted to be sales by year.

The model is interactive. The checkboxes are “slicers.” Checking a box will cross-filter all of the charts on that page. Similarly, clicking into a chart element will also cross-filter. You can click on more than one check box. If you are on a Mac, depress the command key while clicking. For PC, use the CTRL key. Hovering over a chart element will cause the value to display.

This model has multiple pages. The page bar is at the bottom of the screen.

Click here to spawn a web browser version of the dashboard

The browser version is a little balky, but such is life. If anyone has a PBI subscription and wants to see a PBI.com dash, send an email to WestportEVClub@gmail.com.

Look to upcoming posts to see our take on the highlights from the data set.

A ribbon-cutting for the largest cluster of charging stations in Connecticut will be hosted by the Electric Vehicle Club of Connecticut, Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and the Connecticut Electric Vehicle Coalition on June 13, 2018, at 5:00 PM in Hartford. This event is open to the general public.

777 Main Street in Hartford is a LEED Certified Platinum building with 285 apartments and 40,000 square feet of commercial space. The development includes a total of 29 EV chargers: six Tesla superchargers, eight Tesla destination chargers, eight Clipper Creek level 2 chargers, and six level 2 and one level 3 DC SAE combo ChargePoint chargers.

A reception and panel discussion of EV policy in the Penthouse of 777 Main will follow, from 5:30 to 7:00 PM. Moderator and panelists:

• Claire Coleman – Energy and Environment Attorney at CT Fund for the Environment
• Matt Macunas – Legislative Liaison and EV Policy Specialist at CT Green Bank
• Kerri Enright Kato – Director of DEEP’s Office of Climate Change
• Emily Lewis – Policy Analyst at The Acadia Center

Subject to interest and time, an EV “ride and drive” will be available. An array of new electric vehicles are expected, including BMW, Nissan, Chevrolet, Tesla, and Honda.

About 777 Main

777 Main was designed and developed by Becker and Becker. Principal Bruce Becker, also the president of the Electric Vehicle Club of CT, stated, “80% of EV charging is done at home. Residents of apartments and condos typically have less access to charging, which is a significant barrier to ownership for a lot of people, especially in cities. The ambitious emission-reduction goals set by the state underscore the importance of increasing the number of EVs from the 6,264 registered as of March. This project in Hartford, CT serves as an example for adding charging features in housing developments as an impetus to accelerate EV adoption.”

35% Increase in 2017

The number of plug-in vehicles registered in CT has grown by 35.1% in a comparison of 2 data points one year apart.

The Westport Electric Car Club received an updated vehicle ownership file from the CT Department of Motor Vehicles which was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. This enables us to make comparisons with a similar file acquired 1 year ago. These files contain no personal data, just make, model, model year, and city.

This translates to 6264 vehicles this year compared to 4636 the prior year. The term EV includes both battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV). EVs represent .28% of all vehicles registered in the state this year, up from .20% last year. EV sales have been growing by double digit percentage increases for several years now, but when looking at a number like .28% of all vehicles, the context is that these recently manufactured EVs are in a file that contains all of the existing fleet in the state.

Keep in mind that these data points are static snapshots of vehicles registered. It is not the same as new car sales. It would include the purchase of used vehicles and it would not include vehicles that were sold or had a lease expiry. Broadly speaking, since they aren’t the same numbers, this 35% increase compares with a 26% increase in the sales of new EVs nationally in 2017 vs. 2016. As this post is being written the March 2018 EV sales figures are being released. Inside EVs is reporting a record month, with EV sales up 43% compared to March 2017.

Makes

The most widely represented EV make in CT remains Tesla with 1617 vehicles, followed by Chevrolet with 1504 and Toyota with 1191.

Cities

With respect to cities, Greenwich remains the city with the most EVs at 511. Westport is third with 266, though it has the highest per capita incidence of EVs at 1%, roughly 3.5 times the incidence of the state as a whole.

One of the most frequent questions we got when we did our analysis last year was how many fuel-cell vehicles were in the file. The answer this year is the same as last year: NONE!

There were several new models represented this year, including the Honda Clarity PHEV, Chrysler Pacifica PHEV, and the Mini-Cooper PHEV.

Increases

The makes with the largest percentage increases among those with a major EV presence (arbitrarily defined as at least 300 units) are Chevrolet at 52.4%, Toyota at 51.9%, Nissan at 33.3%, and Tesla at 21.4%. The Chevy increase was driven by the introduction of the BEV Bolt. Toyota introduced the Prius Prime, the new version of its plug-in Prius which is selling much better than the previous model. Nissan is transitioning to the new Leaf.

The elephant in the room is, of course, the Tesla Model 3. Given that Tesla is the most widely represented EV brand in the state and given the fact that there is a backlog of unfilled reservations, if Tesla manages to wrangle its manufacturing bottleneck, it could change the complexion of the numbers. There were only 4 Model 3s included in this file. During recent testimony in Hartford, Tesla reported having over 3000 Model 3 reservations in the state. In Westport, Tesla represents 51% of all plug-ins and it accounts for 8.3% of all of the Teslas registered in the state. That projects out to something like 250-300 Model 3 reservations in Westport. In other words, if this is accurate, it represents a number roughly equal to all of the plug-ins currently registered in the town.

We won’t know for a while about the Model 3, but we will be following up with additional information from our analysis of the data and an update to our interactive dashboard. Stay tuned!

First Tesla Model 3 in CT

Westport Electric Car Club Member Bruce Becker is the recipient of the first Model 3 from Tesla to be delivered to Connecticut. As an existing (or should we say pre-existing) Tesla owner of a Model S, along with an early dive into the packed reservation queue, Becker was able to land his prize. The only way to have gotten it sooner would have been to be a Tesla employee. As of the end of January, Tesla had only delivered 3,647 units of the Model 3 with a backlog of over 400,000 non-binding reservations.

A gathering at the charging stations outside of Staples High School in Westport brought a number of onlookers and local officials. The timing is propitious as the CT State Legislature has just convened it’s “short session.” There will be another push to pass legislation that would allow Tesla to open stores in Connecticut, which is one of only a handful of states that do not permit this. As a result, CT residents have to travel to neighboring states to purchase, depriving CT of millions in lost tax revenues, not to mention the economic activity that would result from Tesla investing in facilities and hiring locally, and not to mention that Tesla manufacturers clean transportation vehicles in the USA.

The Westport Electric Car Club has started a petition to tell our legislators to support this legislation. It is easy to virtually support this effort. Just text “EV CT” to 52886.

Bruce Becker, Model 3 Owner. Yes, that’s a BMW i8 in the back/center (Photo: Barry Kresch for WECC)

Details

Becker described the Model 3 as providing an exceptional driving experience, smooth, quiet, responsive, more fun even than his Model S.

 Westport First Selectman Jim Marpe was checking out the goods. (Photo: Barry Kresch for WECC)

View of the trunk and panoramic glass roof. (Photo: Barry Kresch for WECC)

Here is the “frunk.” No engine = more storage. (Photo: Barry Kresch for WECC)

All of the controls are part of the screen. Otherwise, the dash is a clean laminated strip, partly visible here between the screen and the steering wheel. (Photo: Barry Kresch for WECC)

Please support our petition. The legislature is on a short timeline to act and now is the time to be heard.

The New Peak Oil

There was a documentary film called “Collapse,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009 about a self-styled investigative journalist named Michael Ruppert who claims to have predicted the 2008 financial crisis. In this film, he purports to forecast a looming disaster caused by an insufficient supply of fossil fuels to support a growing world economy. “The mortal blow in human industrialized civilization will happen when oil prices spike and nobody can afford to buy that oil and everything will just shut down,” is how he characterized it.

Had that come to pass, it would certainly would have created some urgency to find alternatives. But that was then. Less than a decade later, we find ourselves awash in fracked oil and natural gas, and in the midst of a slow-burning (pun intended) climate crisis, where the political leadership at the Federal level in our own country, the largest country in terms of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions and the second largest in terms of current emissions, is more resistant to doing something about it than almost all other countries.

While Ruppert was wrong about “peak oil”, he made another comment that was more prescient with respect to the larger political dynamic: “It’s kind of sad because we as a species have become so disconnected from the Earth. We don’t have any real contact with the Earth. We don’t have any sense of its functions, its feeling, its seasons, its timings.”

If you would like more of a freak-out, albeit in a more soberly detailed, journalistic style, try reading The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, who discusses (among other things) species adaptation in past cycles of climatic change and how this time is different. (It’s happening a lot faster, folks, too fast for evolution to keep up.)

Peak Oil and EVs

Where this fits with EVs, of course, is that transportation accounts for 40% of petroleum use globally. The meaning of the phrase “peak oil” has changed from meaning the scarcity of supply to the turning point in consumption level. The projected EV adoption rate is a big factor in determining when that occurs.

According to a survey of forecasts published by Bloomberg, the earliest this is likely to happen is shortly before 2030, as forecasted by Bank of America. The intersection point in terms of the cost curves of EVs and conventional vehicles is forecasted to be 2025. The point at which EV sales surpass ICE sales is forecasted to be 2038. Others, such as major petroleum exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia, forecast this peak oil point to be further out, more like 2050. 

The Landscape

One may be forgiven for feeling a sense of cognitive dissonance when looking at the landscape for EVs in the USA.

• We have not reached the tipping point with consumers purchasing plug-in vehicles.
• There is a Federal tax credit, flaws and all.
• Tax credit notwithstanding, the political environment at the Federal level is largely unfavorable to clean energy. Auto manufacturers have had success in persuading the current administration to back away from phase two of the Obama CAFÉ requirements.
• There is a mixed landscape across the states with some offering incentives and others that add a surcharge to EV registrations.
• Many dealers are reluctant to sell EVs. (This is a link to a 2015 NY Times articleabout this subject. This is a link to a more recent, candid, and thoughtful article by an employee at a Chevy dealership about the challenges of selling EVs, even when working for a dealer who is supportive.)
• EVs remain under-marketed.
• A recently reported study conducted by KPMGof 1000 auto industry executives reported negative sentiment for near/medium term EV prospects. To quote from Green Car Reports, “76% of executives see internal combustion engine vehicles as still more important than electric drivetrains for a very long time.” They felt the biggest hurdle is a lack of charging station infrastructure. (Strangely, they were more bullish on fuel-cell vehicles to break out, even though there is even less hydrogen infrastructure.)

And yet there have been numerous ambitious announcements by major legacy auto manufacturers.

• GM has announced the development of a modular EV platform that will be the basis for 20 or more vehicles. This flexible platform is intended to lower the cost substantially. They anticipate selling1MM EVs per year (globally) by 2026 (and “bury Tesla”).
• Ford announced an $11 billion investment in 40 plug-in vehicles by 2022.
• Volvo intends to phase out gasoline engines by 2024.
• Fiat/Chrysler announced the future of automobiles is electric. This by CEO Sergio Marchionne, the same person who several years ago asked customers not to by his Fiat 500e BEV.
• Volkswagen, in the wake of “dieselgate,” has announced a pivot to EVs and, as part of the settlement for the diesel emissions fraud, a $2 billion investment in charging infrastructure.

At least part of the reason for these plans is what is happening outside of the USA.

• The EV poster child is Norway, where 52% of new car sales are now EVs, and their goal is to phase out diesel and gasoline by 2025. They are using a panoply of carrots and sticks, including generous subsidies, to drive this result which they hope can be phased out over the next 10 years. And the price of gasoline is 15.86 krone per liter (Jan 2018), or about $7.65 per gallon (compared to $2.53 in the USA, per AAA).
• Paris plans to ban diesel by 2025 and phase out gasoline vehicles by 2030. Britain and France plan to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles country-wide by 2040.
• China has ordered the discontinuation of 553 vehicle models that are the most polluting.
• Japan now has more charging stations than gasoline stations.

Plug-in vehicle models are becoming more numerous. Electric propulsion is beginning to be incorporated into larger vehicles. The energy density in batteries is steadily improving. Prices are coming down to the point where, eventually, incentives won’t matter. The EVs on the market now have mostly been well-received, are fun to drive, and will only get better and more diverse.

While there are different forecasts about when EV sales will overtake those of internal combustion vehicles and when peak oil consumption will occur, nobody thinks it won’t happen. The Georgetown Climate Center held a webinar on February 13 regarding planning for charging infrastructure for an EV corridor in the Northeast. Just to excerpt one sentence with respect to combating carbon emissions, “Without electrification of the transportation sector, there is no clear path to meeting our goals.”

CHEAPR

States have been going their own way, whatever the direction of what may be happening Federally. Connecticut has been a consistent supporter of EV adoption and reduced emissions on a number of fronts. And with good reason, as the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) estimates that the transportation sector accounts for about 40% of emissions statewide.

CHEAPR, which stands for Connecticut Hydrogen and Electric Automobile Purchase Rebate, offers rebates to purchasers of plug-in or fuel-cell vehicles. The program began in May 2015. It was announced in November 2017 that another round of funding had been procured to replenish the pool, bringing the total funding since the program’s inception to $5,064,500. According to the CHEAPR website, 2,332 rebates have been issued since the program started, and the amount of funds remaining stands at $1,093,250 These numbers are as of January 11, 2018. (That website link can be used to access all details about CHEAPR.)

Unlike the Federal tax credit, CHEAPR is a rebate so it is of use to people who are not in a position to utilize a tax credit. Some dealers will do the paperwork and just deduct it from the invoice. Unlike the Federal program, there is a $60,000 cap on base MSRP for eligible vehicles. If you are aware of CHEAPR but haven’t checked lately, there were changes made in August 2017 with respect to which vehicles qualify for each level rebate. The maximum rebate was raised to $5,000 (for fuel-cell vehicles, which are expensive). Other rebate levels are $3,000, $2,000, and $500 based on car type and electric range.

There are 3 fuel-cell vehicles on the eligibility list. We’d like to ask our readers, has anyone seen any of them “in the wild” in CT?

Charging Infrastructure

Connecticut has supported charging stations as well as provided credits to municipalities to install charging stations through the Clean Energy Communities Program. In Westport, where town administrations have been supportive of the club’s efforts, there are 19 public charging stations that have been obtained in this way. They are located at the two Metro-North stations, the public library, Staples High School, and town hall. There are two other charging stations downtown that were installed by the Tri-Town Teachers Credit Union and Karl Chevrolet. Of these 21 charging stations, 17 are level 2 and 4 are level 1. In addition, there are other chargers in nearby towns as well as at certain rest stops on the expressways. The expressway chargers are level 3 fast chargers. And, of course, Tesla has built out its own proprietary charging network which spans the country.

CT is a member of the CARB consortium of states that follow the stricter California emissions requirements. CT is also one of the ZEV states, a subset of the CARB states, that mandate the sales of zero-emission vehicles.

Still No Direct Sales Bill

The other, more dubious, news is that CT remains a Tesla-free state (one of only 5 nationally, none in the Northeast), meaning that the company is not permitted to open stores in CT. In 2017, as in 2016, the “Tesla Bill” failed to make it to a vote in the legislature. Let’s keep in mind that the most widely-owned EV marque in CT is Tesla, but customers are forced to either travel out of state or transact online. It has been reported that the state is losing $15 million per year in sales tax revenue plus the revenue from the investment in facilities and employment. The bill is up for consideration again in this year’s “short session.” Contact your state legislators and tell them you support this bill.

So why do we need an “act of Congress,” so to speak, for Tesla to be able to do business here? It’s all about the dealer franchise laws. These laws were created many decades ago and the purpose was to protect dealerships (which are independently owned businesses) from predatory competition from the manufacturers they represent. There was never any Tesla-type scenario envisioned at the time these laws were written. And given the decidedly mixed reception that the dealer networks of the legacy manufacturers have given EVs, along with the fact that close to 99% of new car sales are still of the internal combustion variety, it is understandable why Tesla has a business model focused on direct sales.

The proposed compromise that was unsuccessful in CT would have carved out a narrow exception to the franchise laws that would fit Tesla (and nobody else, at least not at present. For a more detailed explanation of the bill, see our earlier blog post discussing it.) But Tesla has had some success in other states in arguing that the franchise laws simply don’t apply. Just this month, according to the Providence Journal, DMV lawyers in Rhode Island concluded that franchise laws only apply to manufacturers with franchisees. Residents of Eastern CT can pay a visit to the Tesla showroom opening in Warwick, RI later this year.

Model 3

Some people have asked us if a Tesla Model 3 is eligible for the rebate since it is not sold in the state. It is. (The only thing to watch out for with respect to the Model 3, where there is currently a lengthy lag from reservation to delivery, is that the funds don’t get applied until there is a VIN number which doesn’t happen until the vehicle is in production. CHEAPR funds have been replenished several times to this point, but the availability is not guaranteed indefinitely.)

For folks interested in supporting Tesla coming to CT, the company has set up a Facebook

page and a website has been set up by a local group of Tesla owners. Also, please sign our online petition by texting “EV CT” to 52886.

Federal Tax Credit

There is a Federal tax credit of up to $7500 for the purchase of a plug-in vehicle. The amount of the credit depends on the size of the battery. This tax credit originated in the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 (George W. Bush administration), though it was amended in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. “Obama Stimulus Package) in 2009. 2018 could be “the year of the ceiling.”

There was some suspense regarding whether the credit would survive the 2017 GOP tax bill given an administration that is doubling down on fossil fuels. The House version of the bill eliminated it. The Senate version retained it, and in the end, it survived. (A proposal arising late in the Obama Administration to change the incentive from a credit to a point of sale rebate and raise it to $10,000 was not able to get serious consideration in this Congress.)

Though the survival of the tax credit may sound counter-intuitive given the current political climate, there is evidence that even though EVs are relatively new, they have established a presence economically. Fortune reports that 50 companies, including major auto manufacturers and Uber, sent a letter urging Congress to retain the credit. The Detroit Free Press reports data compiled by the US Energy Department saying that EV production in this country is responsible for over 215,000 jobs.

It also happens not to be without controversy among vehicle manufacturers, particularly Tesla and General Motors, which will feel its distorting effects first.

Unit Threshold

The credit has a ceiling of 200,000 units applied to a given manufacturer. Once a manufacturer sells unit number 200,000, the credit remains in place for the current and subsequent quarters (to service the pipeline). It is then halved (up to $3750) for the next 6 months, halved again (up to $1875) for another 6 months, and then it goes away entirely for that manufacturer. In other words, the players who jumped first into the deep water will become price-disadvantaged relative to the laggards.

Tesla and General Motors have sold 161,771 and 168,183 respectively through 2017. Both are certain to crack the 200,000 level during 2018 and lose the credit at some point in 2019. Tesla will probably get there first if it succeeds in ramping Model 3 deliveries. The YouTube Channel, Teslanomics (a relatively conservative forecaster) expects Tesla to get to this level in the second quarter. GM, at its current run rate of over 5,000 plug-in units per month, will not be that far behind. And if Nissan, another early entrant, has success with its new generation of the Leaf, it too, could reach this point in the relatively near term. Nissan has sold 114,808 Leafs to this point. These companies will face some big pricing decisions and pressure to maximize cost-control in order to stay competitive.

Importance of EVs to Forestall Climate Change

According to a report issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Electric vehicles are central to reducing oil consumption and transportation-related emissions in the United States.” And incentives matter at this stage of the game. In the one instance where there was a real “light switch” test, the State of Georgia, which initially had generous EV incentives in the form of a $5,000 rebate, discontinued it in 2015 and EV sales dropped by 89% in the span of two months. In California, a state that has been among the most aggressive in deploying various incentives, EVs represent 5% of new vehicle sales (as opposed to 1% nationally).

With all of the wrangling over the EV incentives, let’s not forget that the fossil fuel industry continues to benefit from preferential tax treatment in the form of expensing of intangible drilling costs, domestic manufacturing deduction, depletion allowance, acceleratated amortization, and inexpensive Federal leases. This was estimated by the Wall Street Journal to be worth $4.76 billion per year. Also keep in mind that externalities, the effects of burning the stuff, drilling/fracking for it, transporting it, or accidentally spilling it are not taxed. There are Federal and State gas taxes, though the Federal tax hasn’t been raised since 1993. This has kept gasoline prices in the USA lower than most of the world. The average price for a gallon of gasoline domestically is 55% lower than the worldwide average (January 2018).

With respect to the Federal tax credit, what we have may be better than nothing, but we like the Obama-era proposal to turn the tax credit into a rebate. Not everyone is able to benefit from a tax credit. And we would like to see the sales-unit cap removed.

In terms of how long incentives might be needed, according to data from the Union of Concerned Scientists, it is estimated that with continuing improvements and cost reduction in the technology, the cost curve for EVs may cross that of internal combustion vehicles by about 2025.

EV Landscape

This is the first of several posts that will discuss the EV landscape from the perspective of the directions in vehicle production, the Federal tax credit, the latest with respect to efforts on the part of the State of Connecticut, and some observations about the global outlook.

Various pundits followed by this page had forecasted plug-in sales crossing the 200,000-unit threshold in 2017. That didn’t happen, but it was oh, so close. According to Inside EVs, the final number for 2017 is 199,826, an increase of 26% over 2016. (This number excludes fuel-cell vehicles, which, though small, would have added another couple of thousand to the total). This follows a 37% increase in 2016 over 2015. December 2017 had the highest EV sales of any month on record with 26,107 units, up 5% over December 2016.

While this general sales trend is healthy and has withstood a prolonged period of moderate or low gasoline prices, overall sales volume remains in niche territory given the total car/light-duty truck sales of 17.2 million (of which 63% were of the truck/SUV persuasion).

There were 42 distinct plug-in models registering sales in 2017, quite a jump from 27 models just 2 years ago. The diversity of EVs continues to improve and includes vehicles with longer range and of larger size.

Of all of the new model introductions, the most notable are the first mid-price battery electric vehicles (BEV) with a single-charge range of over 200 miles: the compact crossover Chevrolet Bolt and the Tesla Model 3 sedan. The 200-mile threshold was thought to be a game-changer. So how are we doing?

The Bolt rollout was gradual and full national distribution did not occur until fall 2017. It quickly rose to become the largest selling plug-in for GM with 3,227 units sold in December, a respectable number by EV standards. The Bolt sales figure for December is the second highest for a GM plug-in, bested only by the 3,691 Volts sold in December 2016.

Tesla, after reportedly booking over 200,000 reservations in the USA alone with refundable deposits, has only produced 1772 Model 3s since the first one rolled off the line in July. There was some encouraging news in that the December number increased to 1060 following November at only 345. Nonetheless, prospective Model 3 buyers must remain patient. If Tesla can wrangle their manufacturing bottleneck, and if some reservation holders don’t bolt for a Bolt, the Model 3 at present appears to be the only plug-in that can approach a reasonable fraction of the monthly sales volume of a top-selling gasoline car (currently the Honda Civic at roughly 24,000 units per month. The top-selling vehicle is the Ford F series pickup at about 73,000 units per month.)

In the case of Chevrolet, the rise of the Bolt has correlated with a decline in Volt sales. Chevy sold 1937 Volts in December, a 48% decline from December 2016. This could be due to an easier to explain user proposition for a BEV relative to a plug-in hybrid (PHEV). Both offer industry-leading electric range in their class (Bolt – 238 EV miles, Volt – 53 EV miles + 370 gas miles). Both have been well-received. But the PHEV world is complicated to explain. The category has tremendous variation across vehicles from the perspective of engineering, performance, and range. And many PHEV drivers make efforts to maximize their mileage using the battery.

PHEV/BEV

That said, the PHEV powertrain isn’t going away anytime soon. In 2017, the market was roughly split with PHEVs having a 53% market share (based on unit sales). The manufacturers are looking to introduce electric versions of their top selling SUVs and trucks. The only way to get there today is the PHEV format.

There were 2 introductions last year of mid-priced vehicles in these larger categories, both PHEVs. The Chrysler Pacifica (minivan – 33-miles electric) arrived along with the Mitsubishi Outlander (compact SUV – 22-miles electric). These join pricier options available from BMW, Volvo, and Mercedes. All of these have modest sales to this point (defined as under 1000 month).

Toyota, the company that pioneered the hybrid category with the conventional Prius parallel hybrid has finally produced a vehicle that is making a sales impact. This is the second generation plug-in Prius (PHEV), the Prius Prime. The electric range is 25 miles and the base MSRP is under $30,000 before incentives. Sales of this model reached 2420 in December, higher than the Volt.

Another major manufacturer that has heretofore been mostly on the sidelines, Honda, introduced both a BEV and PHEV version of its clean-energy nameplate Clarity.

Below are the market shares in the US for each manufacturer as reported by Inside EVs.

The most obvious reason for a major change to the landscape is a ramped up Tesla Model 3. All of the major manufacturers have made announcements about dramatically scaling up the number and variety of EV models they produce. Within the next five years, it seems likely that between 100 and 200 new models will be available. These are the vehicles that we have seen specifically announced for 2018:

• Jaguar I-Pace – BEV, a first for Jaguar.
• Nissan Leaf – Not new, exactly, but a major redo is promised.
• Audi e-tron Quattro – First Audi plug-in SUV.
• Faraday Future FF-91 – The first car from a new company, headquartered in Silicon Valley, backed by Chinese company LeEco Electronics.

This is a good reference of currently available vehicles from Plugincars.com

2018 is the year that some manufacturers will bump against the ceiling of the Federal tax credit. More on that in the next post.