The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

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BEV/TSLA (battery EV) and engine types stats in CA as of Oct 2018. Trying to figure out a way to track the local market instead of anecdotal observations. I guessed anecdotally that TSLA has around 3% of our town's passenger car fleet and came surprising close. Actual number of all BEVs is 3.5%+. Yesterday as a numerical exercise, I counted the number of German luxury cars/suvs (Mercedes, BWM, Audi, Porsche) and Tesla's going in the opposite direction of me in traffic while going to my workout (round trip around 10 miles). I stopped at 100 German cars. At that point, I counted 14 Tesla's (majority being model 3, 3-X, 2-S). I estimate that German luxury cars make up around 20% of our town's. So 0.20*14/100 also gets me close to 3%. In my count of German cars, I included one BMW i3. As expected the wealthier places have higher BEV penetration. The highest I found was Los Altos, where a lot of SV execs live, at 6%. Amongst the biggest cities, SF leads as expected. LA and San Diego are still slightly under 1%. Central CA farming areas trail far behind the pack as expected. Tesla home turf of Fremont is close to 3.5% which 2X ahead of San Jose with the same demographics. File available in csv format as well on site.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/1949a1b2-be57-4024-a921-5eb00babea68/MotorVehicleFuelTypes_City_102018.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=