Still on the fence about whether to invest in electric vehicle (EV) charging stations? A new report from researchers at Storage Café may help you decide. The report identifies the best-equipped metro areas for EVs. Researchers analyzed the 100 largest U.S. metro areas based on 14 key metrics, including the number of registered electric vehicles, EV infrastructure, the cost of an eGallon and other criteria.
The San Jose (CALIF.) metro area is the ultimate electric car hotspot. The metro area has the most EV public charging stations per 1,000 households (2.4), as well as the most apartment units (12.3 percent) in rental buildings fitted with charging stations. San Jose also claims the third-highest number of EVs in the country (approx. 74,000 electric cars).
In terms of the number of registered EVs, the Los Angeles metro area is unmatched, with more than 230,000 electric cars registered. The San Francisco metro area takes the second spot with approx. 122,000 EVs.
Here are a few additional nuggets from the report:
- As many as 1.8M electric vehicles were registered in the U.S. in 2020, with consumer interest constantly on the rise.
- Palo Alto in particular, which has been nurturing Tesla for quite some time now, serves as the hotbed of eco-friendly driving.
- On the East Coast, the New York-Newark-Jersey City area comes in fourth with the highest electric vehicle adoption—over 70,900. Coming in at 100 is Jackson, Miss.
Phoenix is the best equipped nationally in terms of HOV lane access, as the metro dedicates 17.5 percent of all its freeway lanes, a total of about 390 lane miles, exclusively to EV usage. - Metro areas with the largest share of rentals that have EV charging stations include San Jose, Sarasota, Fla., Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Raleigh, N.C.
Michael Lenox, Ph.D., Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration, University of Virginia, Darden School of Business, says, “I am relatively optimistic that we will see increasing penetration of EVs in the marketplace over the next decade with it becoming the dominant drive train for new car sales by 2030. The cost trajectory of batteries, which is the primary driver of the price of EVs, is such that EVs may become less costly than internal combustion engines by mid-decade. At this point, EVs will be preferable on the current dimensions of merit.”
