The Energy Information Administration publishes the estimated electricity consumption by battery powered light-duty vehicles in the US. These estimates include both battery-only vehicles (BEV) plus plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV).
US PHEV and BEV light duty vehicles
2025 electricity consumption, megawatt-hours
PHEV 4,191,600 MWh
BEV 19,341,255 MWh
Total 23,532,855 MWh
As a comparison, 23.5 million MWh of electricity consumption is roughly the same amount as the total electricity consumption in the state of Connecticut in 2025.
Below is the recent yearly trend of total electricity used by light duty electric vehicles in the US.
2021 3,518,797 MWh
2022 5,251,782
2023 13,212,000
2024 17,800,214
2025 23,532,855
If you want to see the estimated consumption broken down by state, see link here. California leads all other states by a wide margin. Florida and Texas come in at #2 and #3.
_Pete
(Here in San Diego, I drove by the local gas station today, and the cheapest unleaded price is $5.99 per gallon)
It’s interesting to see CA so far ahead of any other state. I know they are the biggest state (people), but still even adjusted for population, they are so far ahead. I wonder if it is solely because of high gasoline prices or if other things contribute to it? As far as I know, CA doesn’t many specific monetary incentives to buy EVs like, for example, CO and NJ have/had.
California has long (at least as far back as 1849 with “49ers” lunging for wealth) attracted people with a desire to “live in the future”, even to the point of taking pride in being intensely disdained as “the land of ‘fruits and nuts’”. That is probably the single strongest mythic trait across two centuries, amplifying on the original Spanish explorers’ conceit, almost immediately embraced by the likes of such as Francis Drake, of seeing California as a brilliantly mythic magical island marking the furthest reaches of human power and vision.
Two of my paternal ancestors arrived in California in the wild decade after the goldrush, both wildly fierce impoverished teenagers traveling alone, one from Ireland and the other from the obscure Åland Islands (Estonian genetics, Finnish sovereignty, Swedish speaking), met as starry eyed independent teenagers in the 1860’s (in Union Square Park), married, and then sought and succeeded in remaking themselves as mythic “Californians”, and their first born, my grandfather, played football for the newly founded University of California.
The “visionary” Abraham Lincoln, shortly before his assasination, wrote of his plans to move his family to California after wrapping up his Presidency…
California has a much higher percents for the same reasons that Norway does:
They have had a long history of government incentives for buying, including cash rebates. They have also had incentives for installing charging networks, and now have one of the highest percentages in the country. Quite common to see, actually. And yes, they have high gas prices, which acts as an additional incentive.
I would also say it is a politically liberal state with a high environmental consciousness (especially given the smog and other pollution problems they have faced in the past - including environmental laws fomented by the early gold rushes when hydraulic mining stripped many mountainsides of trees & soil).
And EVs are one of those things that gets trendy, it’s only a few brave souls who lay out that kind of money early, but as they appear more frequently the semi-early-adopters get into the game, then the next group, and so on. I see it now here in Tennessee. Just a couple years ago you couldn’t find one on the roads. Then a few - but the outlying towns had none. Now it is more here, some in the outlying areas, and it continues to grow. Eventually it will be a lot here in my city, more in outlying towns, and a few in the really far outlying towns, and will continue in that vein.
California is, as in many things, ahead of the curve.
It should also be noted that California EV sales have plateaued since 2023 at around 25%. The state mandate for 2026 (35% of sales) has been challenged at the Federal level and will be worked out in the courts. However, it is unlikely that the 35% target would be met at any rate.
I’m not so sure about that. I very briefly checked and CA incentives come with stringent income limits. And the vast majority of people who own EVs in CA are very likely above those income limits. Unless they are fooling around by having someone else buy and register the car, then they have almost no incentive. CO on the other hand had extremely good incentives that covered nearly everyone, and when the Federal $7,500 credit still existed, when combined with the CO incentives, you could get certain basic EV models for almost nothing (there were a few folks from CO that posted their Nissan Leaf leases that were under $50 a month!!!). NJ, surprisingly, also had some remarkably good incentives, at the peak combined with the Federal incentives, you could get a new Tesla model 3 for just under $30,000.
This is definitely a contributory factor. CA residents bought EVs long before they were “a thing”. There were even a few hundred Californians that bought a Mirai (hydrogen powered), but over the years hydrogen (for cars) has proven to be a non-starter.
Maybe brave or maybe just engineer minded. Once I “ran the numbers” on EVs (from an engineering and efficiency point of view), I quickly replaced all 3 of our ICE vehicles with EVs.
Those income requirements have only been in the last few years. And then there is the car pool stickers for hybrids, then EV/PHEVs that are now over. But I knew many that got a PHEV or EV just to get car pool lane access.
Also, many businesses have installed free EV chargers. And not just 2 or 4. Many have dozens for just one building. Apple and Google, for example) have them at almost every building.
There’s nothing like free charging. When I still worked, my employer had no charging at all, free or not free. That despite 13% of the employees driving EVs. Whenever I have chance to charge free, I do so, even if it’s only for 10-15 minutes. I’ll pop over to the local supermarket and charge while I’m there. Some malls that I’ve been to have free charging. Once at TopGolf in Georgia there was great free charging. Some movie theaters have free charging. Etc. Oh and around here, most municipal facilities have free charging, FP&L, our local power company is big into renewables and sponsors free chargers all over the place at municipal facilities (city halls, libraries, community centers, etc).
Here in Florida, until this year I got better than car pool lane access, I got free I-95 Express Lane access. For many people that is a HUGE benefit as the price can reach $12 at peak traffic times. But since I didn’t commute via I-95 I didn’t benefit as much. But when I drove down to the baseball park, I used the express lanes as often as possible.