S.C.’s electric vehicle adoption

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If you’ve been driving through one of South Carolina’s metro areas, you’ve probably said something along the lines of “Is that a Tesla?” You might have even gazed through the window of a Nissan Leaf or done a quick online search to figure out what that futuristic looking BMW parked on King Street might be — it’s an i8, hybrid in case you had trouble figuring it out.

Lots of electric vehicles are hitting the market along with electric charging stations popping up in parking garages, outside of municipal buildings and office complexes. So how far has South Carolina gone toward adopting electric vehicles? Using data from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and an analysis site that follows the adoption of electric vehicles across the U.S., we compared the market penetration of EVs across the Southeast.

For comparison, consider that 145,570 electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. in 2017, which was a 29.10% increase from the previous year; however, electric vehicles still just represented 1.2% of all vehicles in the U.S. on average. In South Carolina, more than 500 electric vehicles were sold in 2017, which represents a nearly 20% increase from the previous year. But consider that electric vehicles represented just over one-quarter of 1% of all vehicles in the Palmetto State.