Rebate Influence on Electric Vehicle Adoption in California

In this paper for the 36th Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition (EVS36), CSE’s Brett Williams, senior principal advisor for electric vehicle programs, and Nicholas Pallonetti, research analyst, examine the influence of California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP) on EV adoption in the Golden State since 2012, with a focus on 2020.

Select findings

• As expected during the onset of COVID in 2020, Rebate Essentiality—the percentage of consumers who would not have purchased/leased their EV without the rebate—decreased, but primarily for Tesla vehicles (to 31%).
• Rebate Essentiality remained relatively high for plug-in hybrid EVs (47%) and non-Tesla battery EVs (50%) and for income-qualified recipients of the Increased Rebate (66%).
• Rebate influence remained strong through 2020 for non-Tesla vehicles with an MSRP below $60,000.

Expectedly, rebate influence was highest for households with annual incomes less than $100,000. Less intuitive, rebate influence remains relatively constant (and relatively high for non-Tesla consumers) between $100,000 and $300,000.