As of June 2017, there are about 12,000 publicly
accessible charging ports at more than 3,600 charging stations in California 75.
As of April 2017, more than 1,600 FCVs had active registrations in California 73.
Table
26
shows the number of FCVS on-the-road in California through 2013-2016 73.

Table 26. Number of FCVs in California (2013-2017)

Year

Number of FCVs

2013

125

2014

152

2015

179

2016

925

2017 (as of April)

1,600

 

As of May
2017, about 300,000 ZEV and PHEVs have been sold in California 74.
Assuming the sales of BEVs and PHEVs have been zero before 2009, Table
27
shows the number of electric vehicles based on the number of new registrations
each year. The data used was from California Auto Outlooks covering the fourth quarter of 2013 76
and the first quarter of 2017 77.

Table 27. Cumulative number of BEVs and PHEVs in California
(2009-2017) 76, 77

Year

Cumulative number of BEVs and PHEVs
 

2009

772      (100% BEV, 0% PHEV)

2010

1169    (92% BEV, 8% PHEV)

2011

8153    (78%
BEV, 22% PHEV)

2012

29051  (43% BEV, 57% PHEV)

2013

71596   (48% BEV, 52% PHEV)

2014

131081 (49%
BEV, 51% PHEV)

2015

193298 (51%
BEV, 49% PHEV)

2016

268463 (52%
BEV, 48% PHEV)

2017
(first quarter)

292733 (52%
BEV, 48% PHEV)

 

Based on the projections, California expects to
have 13,400 and 37,400 FCVs on
the road in 2020 and 2023, respectively 73. Statewide Station Projections show 62
HRSs in California in 2020 73.
California targets a long-term goal of reaching 1.5 million ZEVs on roadways by
2025 74.

Analysis and discussion

Reviewing the
incentives allocated for the deployment of EVs and development of
charging/refueling infrastructure, it can be
seen that the structure of the support for vehicle purchase and
infrastructure development is different. While
in the case of purchase subsidy, the consumer stakeholder owns the vehicle and
the government provides the direct subsidy, in the case of charging
infrastructure and refueling stations, a model of public-private partnership is
followed in many countries although some countries tend so support the
development of charging/refueling infrastructure with direct subsidies to the
investor. Incentives for EVs purchase are
then direct economic incentives and incentives for charging infrastructure are
of direct collaborative and direct economic incentives. Direct incentive means
that the subsidy is transferred to the consumer
in monetary value 12 and
collaborative incentive means the government plays a collaborative and
managerial role in developing infrastructure 13.

Although the purchase subsidy
for vehicles is usually the most noticeable form of subsidizing EVs in each
country or jurisdiction (a research in Norway showed that for more than 80% of
responders to a survey purchase tax and Value-Added Tax (VAT) are of high
importance 9), it should also be noted that
incentivizing charging infrastructure has a significant effect on the
large-scale deployment of electric