Sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) reached a new high in California in 2022, with 292,496 new BEVs hitting the road last year, a nearly 60% jump from 2021. Leading the charge was Tesla, selling more than two and a half times the number of BEVs than all other automakers combined.
According to data released by the State of California Energy Commission, Tesla sold 212,586 of those, or 72.6% of all BEVs sold in California last year. Adding up the BEV sales of all other automakers comes out to just 79,910, a number which is still nearly 15,000 units behind the top selling BEV in California last year, the Tesla Model 3.
Last year a total of 94,683 Model 3 sedans were sold in California, just 811 units ahead of the Model Y in second place. Even though they come with significantly higher price tags than other BEVs on the list, even the Model X (13,319) and Model S (10,712) outsold all other BEVs in the state last year coming in at third and fourth place respectively.
The next closest competitor behind the Model S was the Ford Mustang Mach-E, which had 9,860 sales last year. Next was the Chevy Bolt EUV (8,709), followed by the Hyundai IONIQ 5 (7,519), and VW ID.4 (5,089).
The strong performance by Tesla helped propel BEVs to account for 15.9% of all new vehicles sales in California. Looking at the broader zero emission vehicle (ZEV) standard, which includes plug in hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, ZEVs accounted for 18.8% of all new vehicle sales in the state last year.
Showing just how much Californians love ZEVs, the state accounted for 40% of all ZEV sales in the entire country in 2022.
“California continues to lead the zero-emission vehicle revolution with groundbreaking policies and investments that drive innovation, create good jobs and expand ZEV access and affordability across the state,” said Governor Gavin Newsom.
With all those ZEVs on the roads, California also announced it now has 80,027 public and shared private chargers across the state. The majority of those are the slower Level 2 chargers, accounting for 71,499, leaving just 8,528 that are DC fast chargers.
