Per-capita EV registrations by state

A question that keeps on coming up in my conversations is: where exactly is the electric vehicle adoption the highest?

There’s plenty of information about it on a per-country basis but I couldn’t find anything that breaks it down by US state. So I did a little number-crunching, and figured I’d post it here so that other people can benefit from it.

State Total EVs Population EVs per capita
California 903,620 38,889,770 2.32%
Hawaii 19,760 1,430,877 1.38%
Washington 104,050 7,841,283 1.33%
Oregon 46,980 4,227,337 1.11%
Nevada 32,950 3,210,931 1.03%
Colorado 59,910 5,914,181 1.01%
New Jersey 87,030 9,320,865 0.93%
Arizona 65,780 7,497,004 0.88%
District of Columbia 5,860 689,545 0.85%
Utah 28,050 3,454,232 0.81%
Vermont 5,260 647,818 0.81%
Maryland 46,060 6,196,525 0.74%
Florida 167,990 22,975,931 0.73%
Massachusetts 49,440 7,020,058 0.70%
Virginia 56,610 8,752,297 0.65%
Connecticut 22,030 3,625,646 0.61%
Georgia 60,120 11,145,304 0.54%
Illinois 66,880 12,516,863 0.53%
Delaware 5,390 1,044,321 0.52%
New Hampshire 6,990 1,405,105 0.50%
Texas 149,000 30,976,754 0.48%
New York 84,670 19,469,232 0.43%
Minnesota 24,330 5,761,530 0.42%
North Carolina 45,590 10,975,017 0.42%
Oklahoma 16,290 4,088,377 0.40%
Rhode Island 4,340 1,098,082 0.40%
Pennsylvania 47,440 12,951,275 0.37%
Maine 4,990 1,402,106 0.36%
New Mexico 7,080 2,115,266 0.33%
Michigan 33,150 10,041,241 0.33%
Tennessee 22,040 7,204,002 0.31%
Idaho 5,940 1,990,456 0.30%
Ohio 34,060 11,812,173 0.29%
Missouri 17,870 6,215,144 0.29%
Montana 3,260 1,142,746 0.29%
Alaska 1,970 733,536 0.27%
Wisconsin 15,700 5,931,367 0.26%
Indiana 17,710 6,892,124 0.26%
Kansas 7,550 2,944,376 0.26%
South Carolina 13,490 5,464,155 0.25%
Nebraska 4,570 1,988,698 0.23%
Iowa 6,220 3,214,315 0.19%
Alabama 8,730 5,143,033 0.17%
Kentucky 7,560 4,540,745 0.17%
Arkansas 5,140 3,089,060 0.17%
Wyoming 840 586,485 0.14%
Louisiana 5,880 4,559,475 0.13%
South Dakota 1,170 928,767 0.13%
West Virginia 1,870 1,766,107 0.11%
Mississippi 2,420 2,940,452 0.08%
North Dakota 640 788,940 0.08%

The big surprising thing to me is how low down in the chart New Mexico is, and how high up Arizona is, just knowing their relative political makeups and overall demographics. In particular, New Mexico is surprisingly liberal, eco-conscious, and tech-savvy, especially within the Albuquerque/Santa Fe metroplex which together account for around 50% of the state population. But Albuquerque in particular has been pushing for better mass transit which is a much better option overall than EV adoption.

So that leads me to wonder about a slightly different question, namely: What percentage of registered vehicles are EVs, on a per-state basis? That’s a little more difficult to suss out since the most recent data I can find for vehicle registrations overall is from 2018 and there’s the vagaries of registration class and so on, but here’s the number of personal EVs per registered car and truck in every state:

State Car Truck Total EVs EV proportion
California 15,065,827 15,033,965 30,099,792 903,620 3.002%
Dist. of Col. 209,723 132,810 342,533 5,860 1.711%
Hawaii 509,492 723,960 1,233,452 19,760 1.602%
Washington 2,964,939 3,928,127 6,893,066 104,050 1.509%
New Jersey 2,754,253 3,124,738 5,878,991 87,030 1.480%
Nevada 1,073,760 1,361,583 2,435,343 32,950 1.353%
Oregon 1,488,623 2,302,881 3,791,504 46,980 1.239%
Utah 937,421 1,344,547 2,281,968 28,050 1.229%
Arizona 2,391,772 3,235,918 5,627,690 65,780 1.169%
Colorado 1,798,177 3,353,669 5,151,846 59,910 1.163%
Maryland 1,922,463 2,141,056 4,063,519 46,060 1.134%
Massachusetts 2,182,530 2,696,290 4,878,820 49,440 1.013%
Florida 7,966,091 8,882,855 16,848,946 167,990 0.997%
Vermont 218,302 369,738 588,040 5,260 0.894%
Connecticut 1,306,709 1,473,679 2,780,388 22,030 0.792%
New York 4,712,779 6,297,198 11,009,977 84,670 0.769%
Virginia 3,267,735 4,106,265 7,374,000 56,610 0.768%
Georgia 3,557,469 4,714,799 8,272,268 60,120 0.727%
Texas 8,248,322 13,518,871 21,767,193 149,000 0.685%
Illinois 4,477,763 5,756,734 10,234,497 66,880 0.653%
North Carolina 3,393,781 4,595,651 7,989,432 45,590 0.571%
New Hampshire 506,959 757,353 1,264,312 6,990 0.553%
Delaware 433,363 543,231 976,594 5,390 0.552%
Rhode Island 412,255 429,552 841,807 4,340 0.516%
Minnesota 1,976,525 3,165,856 5,142,381 24,330 0.473%
Maine 390,506 679,175 1,069,681 4,990 0.466%
Pennsylvania 4,424,183 5,874,767 10,298,950 47,440 0.461%
Oklahoma 1,296,219 2,270,493 3,566,712 16,290 0.457%
Michigan 3,023,940 5,095,522 8,119,462 33,150 0.408%
New Mexico 655,766 1,102,580 1,758,346 7,080 0.403%
Tennessee 2,285,329 3,274,809 5,560,138 22,040 0.396%
Missouri 2,102,216 3,215,389 5,317,605 17,870 0.336%
Idaho 598,774 1,210,554 1,809,328 5,940 0.328%
Ohio 4,603,594 5,858,774 10,462,368 34,060 0.326%
South Carolina 1,830,186 2,493,039 4,323,225 13,490 0.312%
Indiana 2,248,870 3,670,024 5,918,894 17,710 0.299%
Wisconsin 2,087,518 3,244,241 5,331,759 15,700 0.294%
Kansas 975,171 1,607,397 2,582,568 7,550 0.292%
Alaska 183,270 580,390 763,660 1,970 0.258%
Nebraska 683,020 1,209,013 1,892,033 4,570 0.242%
Montana 452,845 1,093,927 1,546,772 3,260 0.211%
Arkansas 921,161 1,792,851 2,714,012 5,140 0.189%
Iowa 1,242,219 2,245,710 3,487,929 6,220 0.178%
Kentucky 1,721,942 2,534,172 4,256,114 7,560 0.178%
Alabama 2,161,212 3,023,208 5,184,420 8,730 0.168%
Louisiana 1,389,249 2,352,679 3,741,928 5,880 0.157%
Mississippi 825,338 1,206,447 2,031,785 2,420 0.119%
West Virginia 560,118 1,069,746 1,629,864 1,870 0.115%
Wyoming 203,546 600,452 803,998 840 0.104%
South Dakota 358,859 787,408 1,146,267 1,170 0.102%
North Dakota 240,048 617,536 857,584 640 0.075%

It’s interesting how different the ordering is, and that probably is super reflective of the relative car dependency of those states.

So, here’s a different way of looking at things:

cars-vs-evs.svgcars-vs-evs-per-capita.svg

I’m not quite sure what this actually indicates from a car dependency standpoint but it does show at least something that’s possibly interesting. (Also, WTF at the seven states with more cars than people)

Data sources: