San Antonio Express by James Osborne, Diego Mendoza-Moyers 12/17/2022
Why are electric vehicles sales lagging in Texas? Maybe range anxiety, advocates and dealers say
Inside the Ancira Kia dealership on the Northwest Side, adorned with giant red and green Christmas bows, a few models of the South Korean automaker’s electric vehicles sat alongside their gas-powered counterparts on a recent afternoon.
But as boxy Kia Souls pulled in and out of the dealership’s parking lot on Bandera Road, customers weren’t looking much at the electric vehicles, such as the EV6 Wind. While car shoppers often ask about EVs, as they’re called, they mostly choose hybrid vehicles instead, said John Paul Rivera, a sales manager at the Kia dealership.
“There’s definitely a lot of hype, a lot of interest” around EVs, Rivera said. “People still love their trucks, SUVs. The other thing too is (EVs) are really expensive. Not everyone can buy a $50,000 car.”
So far this year, electric vehicles represent almost 7 percent of all U.S. car sales, more than double the rate two years ago, as motorists in California and along the East Coast rush to pick up one of the multitude of new electric offerings from automakers such as Ford and Tesla.
But in Texas and other states in the middle of the country, the market isn’t quite so charged. In 2022, just 4.3 percent of cars sold in Texas have been electric models, compared with 19 percent in California, according to data firm Atlas Public Policy.
More:
https://www.expressnews.com/sa-inc/article/electric-vehicles-sales-lagging-Texas-17659988.php
