Source: Automakers Dashboard – Atlas EV Hub
We put out the Q1 slides today which summarize electric vehicle developments in Q1 2022. Here are three stories worth noting.
You got the jobs!
More than 22,000 EV manufacturing jobs were announced in Q1. That means that more than one in five of all EV manufacturing jobs were announced in Q1 alone (not counting those announced since Q1). This includes a $7 billion GM investment in Michigan in January 2022. The investment will create 4,000 new jobs and retain 1,000 jobs to build the Chevrolet Silverado EV and electric GMC Sierra. There were nearly 7,000 EV jobs in total announced in Michigan in Q1 2022. Elsewhere, Vinfast signed a preliminary deal to invest at least $2 billion and create more than 7,000 jobs to build a factory in North Carolina to make electric buses, SUVs and batteries for EVs. There were also jobs announced in West Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, Arizona and Alabama.
West Coast Best Coast?
Don’t @ me, but where EV sales are concerned, west is best. As we have noted before, California, Washington and Oregon lead a state sweep. I’ll note though that Washington DC is second only to California. California’s 18 percent market share – meaning that nearly one in five vehicles bought in Q1 in California was an EV – is a significant milestone. Washington State, Oregon and Washington DC all made double figures for the quarter.
On the other end of the spectrum, Mississippi, North Dakota, Louisiana, and West Virginia all remain at or below one percent. It’s worth noting that Nissan plans to upgrade its plant in Canton, Mississippi and to upskill 2,000 jobs, transforming the plant into a center for EV manufacturing. That is, there are EV jobs that are flowing into states with very low EV adoption. Tennessee is another good example. In 2022 so far, EVs made up just 3.3 percent of the light duty market in the state (nearly half the national market share of 6.1 percent) even though the state is in the top five for announced EV manufacturing jobs in the country. We may see numbers in these states climb quickly over the coming years as EV jobs normalize EV sales.
Because we wrote about the Hyundai story last week, I’m not going to touch it again, but it is worth reiterating that Hyundai had a huge quarter including the highest and second highest EV sales for any automaker not called Tesla. Further, U.S. EV Sales are up 53% year over year, with Q1 as the best quarter on record.
Electric Feel
We wrote before about the VW Settlement’s electric year in 2021. It is looking like 2022 will give it a run for its money. In Q1, $39 of the $42 million awarded through the VW Settlement was electric, meaning 94 percent of the funding was awarded to electric projects. That ties with Q1 2021 as the highest so far.
Of the additional $128.6 million that was made available in Q1, 61 percent was identified for electric initiatives and the rest was unspecified including nearly $47 million in North Carolina.
One more note. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act began to take more shape in Q1 2022. This included readying funding such as $1.5 billion for transit buses, $500 million for school buses, and $615 million for EVSE available (through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program). Further, FHWA released formal guidance on the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program in February 2022.
