California: annual electric vehicle sales by propulsion type 2013-2023
In 2023, some 374,700 battery-electric vehicles were sold in California, representing some 84.9 percent of the total electric vehicle sales in the state that year. As technological advances led to an increase in available BEV models with a wider driving range, the sales volume for this EV segment has been steadily rising since 2013, when it recorded under 22,000 sales.
The leading electric vehicle state in the U.S.
For every 1,000 people in California, there were nearly 43 electric cars, making it the U.S. state with the highest ratio of EVs per population, over 10 EVs over the ratio recorded for the second in the ranking. The fast pace of the Californian EV market comes perhaps as no surprise, as the Golden State is also the largest car market across propulsion types in the United States. The battery-electric vehicle fleet in California has steadily risen since 2010. Comparatively, the gasoline-powered light-duty vehicle fleet fluctuated in the past years, dropping between 2021 and 2023.
An expanding charging infrastructure
To meet the charging demand of a growing electric vehicle fleet, California relies on its EV charging network. As of the fourth quarter of 2023, there were around 3.9 electric vehicle supply equipment ports per 100 EVs in the state, a ratio far below the one recorded in most other states, partly due to the size of California's EV fleet. California's charging infrastructure further faces the same issue recorded on a global level: The largest share of its public and shared private network consisted of Level 2 chargers, which are alternating current (AC) chargers. AC chargers, in contrast to their direct current counterparts, tend to have longer charging times, which impact consumers' EV adoption. However, the Golden State is committed to expanding its infrastructure: California was the second state to receive the largest grants from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program in 2023.
