The EPA (or Environmental Protection Agency) has announced that for the first time ever, electric vehicles (plus other alternatively-fueled vehicles) are beginning to make a “measurable and meaningful impact.”
The information came as part of a larger annual report called Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Fuel Economy Trends 1975 – 2014 – you can find it here; it’s worth checking out as it contains lots of fairly easy to understand graphs.
It says that not only is the tech getting better, but that the number of EVs, PHEVs (and CNG-powered vehicles too) now accounts for 1 percent of the entire number of cars produced by manufacturers active in the US. This, in turn, has prompted the EPA to analyze the data on these vehicle separately for the first time.
For instance, MY 2013 had 11 all-electric vehicles and 4 plug-in hybrids available, and for MY 2014, the number has grown to 12 of the former and 10 of the latter; the BMW i3 counts as one of each.
To put it more into perspective, the number of alternative fuel vehicles sold has grown from 1,200 in MY 2010 to a far more impressive sounding (but still insignificant in the grander scheme) 105,000 in MY 2013.
Aside from Tesla, which exclusively sells all-electric vehicles, next up in terms of proportion of entire production run is Nissan whose EVs account for 2 percent, followed by GM with 1.2 percent.
