Unplugged
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The lowest percentage recorded of EV interest since 2019. The percentage of consumers indicating they would be “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to purchase an EV rose from 51% to 63%, the highest since 2022
And had the pollsters asked how many intended to rely on EVs as their household’s exclusive form of automobile transportation, the number would probably have dropped to less than 1%.
Here’s a (2023) look at the EV picture in California from the non-partisan publication CalMatters’ 15-part series, Race to Zero: California's bumpy road to electrify cars and trucks:
Who buys electric cars in California — and who doesn’t?
by Nadia Lopez and Erica Yee March 22, 2023
In summary
Communities with high concentrations of electric cars are affluent, college-educated and at least 75% white and Asian. In contrast, electric cars are almost nonexistent in Black, Latino, low-income and rural communities — revealing the enormous task that California faces electrifying the entire fleet.
In Atherton, one of the nation’s richest towns, giant oaks and well-manicured hedges surround gated mansions owned by some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent billionaires, basketball stars, tech executives and venture capitalists.
Each set on an acre of land, six-bedroom estates with brick-paved pathways, neoclassical statues and cascading fountains are on full display. But increasingly, another status symbol has been parked in these driveways: a shiny electric car — sometimes two.
This tiny San Mateo County community — with an average home value of almost $7.5 million and average household income exceeding half a million dollars — has California’s highest percentage of electric cars, according to a CalMatters analysis of data from the Energy Commission. About one out of every seven, or 14%, of Atherton’s 6,261 cars are electric.
CalMatters’ statewide analysis of ZIP codes reveals a strikingly homogenous portrait of who owns electric vehicles in California: Communities with mostly white and Asian, college-educated and high-income residents have the state’s highest concentrations of zero-emission cars. And most are concentrated in Silicon Valley cities and affluent coastal areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties.
This racial and economic divide may be unsurprising — but it illustrates the mammoth task that California faces as it tries to electrify its 25 million cars to battle climate change, clean up its severe air pollution and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Under a state mandate enacted last year, 35% of cars sold in California, beginning with 2026 models, must be zero-emissions, ramping up to 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035.
If people who buy electric cars are largely white or Asian, highly educated, wealthy, coastal suburbanites, will the state’s transformation succeed? Will new electric cars be attainable for all Californians — no matter their race, income and location — in the coming decade?
High upfront vehicle costs, lack of chargers for renters and inadequate access to public charging stations in low-income and rural communities hamper California’s ability to expand EV ownership beyond affluent parts of the Bay Area and Los Angeles area.
The cost of new electric cars is the most obvious factor driving the racial and income disparities in who buys them: The average as of February was $58,385 — about $9,600 more than the average car — although it dropped from about $65,000 last year. Lower-end fully electric cars start around $27,500.
Kevin Fingerman, an associate professor of energy and climate at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, said the primary reason why more people in white, affluent, college-educated communities own electric cars is that they tend to be early adopters of new technology, with easier access.
“California is prioritizing the rapid electrification of the light-duty vehicle sector and it’s right in doing so. But it’s going to be important in the process to make sure that there is equitable access,” said Fingerman, who co-authored a study on racial and income disparities to electric vehicle charging.
A portrait of electric car hotspots
About 838,000 electric cars were on California’s roads in 2021, and under the state mandate, it’s expected [uh huh — “expected” to be followed by “unexpected failure”- ED] to surge to 12.5 million by 2035.
…. California’s highest concentrations of electric cars — between 10.9% and 14.2% of all vehicles — are in ZIP codes where residents are at least 75% white and Asian. In addition to Atherton, that includes neighborhoods in Los Altos, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Santa Monica and Newport Coast, among others.
In stark contrast, California ZIP codes with the largest percentages of Latino and Black residents have extremely low proportions of electric cars.
In the 20 California ZIP codes where Latinos make up more than 95% of the population — including parts of Kings, Tulare, Fresno, Riverside and Imperial counties — between zero and 1% of cars are electric.
Income seems to be a main driver of the disparities, according to CalMatters’ analysis. Most of the median household incomes in the top 10 exceed $200,000, much higher than the statewide $84,097. Typical home values in those communities exceed $3 million, according to Zillow estimates.
In contrast, electric cars are nearly non-existent in California’s lowest income communities: only 1.4% of cars in Stockton’s 95202, where the median household income is $16,976, and 0.5% in Fresno’s 93701, where the median is $25,905. Most are plug-in hybrids, which are less expensive.
Rural and remote parts of the state — even the entire Central Valley — also are left out of the top ZIP codes with electric cars. With limited charging access, rural residents who drive long distances fear they’ll get stranded if their car runs out of juice.
Black and Latino residents — who make up almost half of California’s population — are less than half as likely as whites to have access to a public charger, according to the study Fingerman co-authored. Disparities in access are also higher in areas with more multi-unit housing, the study showed.
‘We need better options for renters’
Charging remains one of the biggest concerns for people who own or are interested in buying an electric vehicle. California has about 80,000 public chargers, with another estimated 17,000 on the way. But the state will need 1.2 million for the 7.5 million electric vehicles expected on the roads by 2030. [See part 12 of this series, California needs a million EV charging stations — but that’s ‘unlikely’ and ‘unrealistic’]
Many people residing in apartments or condominiums are reliant on public charging stations because they don’t have chargers in their buildings’ parking garages. A standard level 2 charger costs between $500 and $700, plus installing an electricity meter costs $2,000 to $8,000 or more, according to Pacific Gas & Electric.
…. It’s a widespread problem that state leaders have been trying to address. By January 2025, a new law passed last year will require the state to adopt regulations requiring businesses to install charging stations in existing commercial buildings. Another 2022 law will require new and existing buildings, including hotels, motels and multi-family dwellings, to install charging stations.
The rural dilemma: ‘They don’t want to get stuck’
…. None of the top ZIP codes with high concentrations of electric vehicles are in the middle of the state — including the vast Central Valley — or in eastern counties. Instead, they are congregated along the coasts in populous parts of the Bay Area and Los Angeles, according to CalMatters’ analysis.
The unpredictability of charging stations in Sierra Nevada towns has been deeply frustrating, {EV owner Kay Ogden, 62, “ an avid environmentalist and executive director of the Eastern Sierra Land Trust, ] said.
“I go to charge at a certain place and three out of five are broken, or they’ve been vandalized and maybe there’s snow or trash piled up by one and you can’t get to it,” Ogden said. “The companies need to be held accountable for having chargers that are listed on apps that don’t work.”
More than half of 3,500 drivers in a nationwide survey, conducted by the consumer advocacy group Plug In America, reported encountering problems with broken public chargers. Another survey by the air board found barriers to charging and broken chargers.
…. “If there’s a pretty robust charging system in rural areas, there’s going to be more people interested in buying EVs,” Burris said. “I don’t think we’re going to hit our goals as a state unless rural areas are included a bit more than they have been in recent years.”
All of these hurdles, and more, are supposed to be eliminated by 2030 and 2035 — right in time for California’s residents to take the bullet train from LA to San Francisco. You betcha.