Some holiday cheer for Colorado EV drivers

by Gordon Rodda
Some holiday cheer for Colorado EV drivers
Plugging in on the road is getting easier by the day.

The Colorado Governor’s Energy Office recently highlighted progress the state is making towards its goal of replacing all light-duty vehicles with non-polluting or zero-emission vehicles by 2050, without resorting to any bans on ICEs. The state’s progress is being monitored by a third party, Atlas Policy, which obtains some funding from the Governor’s Energy Office.  Atlas Policy has a delightful web site: https:\\atlaspolicy.com/evaluateCO, which is well worth a look. The following data come from that site, accessed 14 Dec 2022.

Colorado has more public chargers than you might expect:

  • 726 high-speed chargers (Level III)
  • 3777 Level II ports

Those Level III chargers in our area are in: Montrose, Cimarron, Ouray, Lake City, Creede, Telluride, Del Norte, Pagosa Springs, Wolf Creek Ski Area, Purgatory Ski Area, Durango Transit Center, and Durango Outdoor Exchange.

Colorado has many more BEVs (all-electric) than Plug-in Hybrid EVs (PHEV) on the road. Together these constitute 7.3% of new registrations of light-duty vehicles:

  • 48,6660 BEVs
  • 19,992 PHEVs

Here are the top models on the road in Colorado (all except those labeled PHEV are BEVs):

  • Tesla Model 3                            12,251
  • Tesla Model Y                             9,957
  • Nissan Leaf                                 7,386
  • Tesla Model S                            3,845
  • Chevy Volt                                  3,091
  • Tesla Model X                             2,519
  • Jeep Wrangler 4xe PHEV       1,800
  • Chevy Bolt                                   1,768
  • BMW x5 PHEV                           1,723
  • Ford Mach E                               1,573