Electric Vehicle Sales Reveal Dirty Secrets About States

When it comes to the adoption of electric vehicles, recent years show a promising trend. The unfortunate side of this is that the adoption rate is massively stilted toward certain states and political representations. There are a significant number of states that don’t seem to be carrying their weight.

With an issue as pressing as all-encompassing climate change, that’s not a good thing. It doesn’t matter how much the Pacific Northwest curbs emissions if the cars in the Southeast continue to pump out greenhouse gases. Fortunately, though, not all hope is lost. The opposite, actually: there’s still time for those states that are lagging behind to catch up. With more and more electric vehicles being released every year, along with increased pressure for things like incentives and tax credits to encourage purchasing, it’s likely that these states will soon be able to make the transition to electric vehicles more readily.

Rebates and programs work. California, the leader in market share for EVs, offers a rebate of up to $7,000 when somebody buys or leases a plug-in hybrid, fuel cell, or all-electric car. Colorado, Washington, and Connecticut, among others, also offer similar programs.

Building the new industry is proving to be a bit of a challenge, but it’s one that has to be addressed in order to make for a greener world. The problem in many states that have lower market shares is a lack of incentives (either private, state, or federal) and infrastructure fit for daily use of an EV. Before EVs can hit the mainstream, the infrastructure for them has to be there, like charging stations. To justify this investment, companies need a reason to expect that more people are going to be adopting EVs. In states like Arkansas where the economy already isn’t faring very well, it can be difficult to find the room in the budget to either incentivize electric cars or build the necessary infrastructure.