California Cities Among Best Places to Drive Electric Vehicles

(TNS) — Five California cities — including Sacramento — are among the best places to drive an electric vehicle, a new report found.

That’s according to iSeeCars, a car search engine.

It ranked metropolitan areas and states based on their electric vehicle charging infrastructure and improvement over the last year using data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center and the U.S. Census Bureau.

“When ranked by the ratio of residents to EV chargers, California remains the best state for driving an electric vehicle, with five of the top 10 most EV-friendly cities located within its borders,” Karl Brauer, iSeeCars executive analyst, said in the report.

There are more than 51,000 chargers across the state of California, according to the report.

Los Angeles has the most electric vehicle chargers in the state — and the country — with 21,537.

That’s 724 residents per charger.

The metropolitan area encompassing San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose metro area has 15,874 EV chargers, the second highest of any metro area in the country. It has 412 residents per charger.

San Diego has 4,244, with 670 residents per charger, and the metro area including Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto has 4,130 chargers — 936 residents per charger.

Meanwhile, the Fresno-Visalia metro area has a total of 1,809 total chargers, with 958 residents per charger.

Brauer said most cities and states are continuing to invest in electric vehicle charging networks.

“Even more encouraging is that several of the weakest cities and states for EV charging are also growing their infrastructure the fastest,” Brauer said in the report. “If this trend continues we should see more consistent charging options for EV owners, regardless of where they live or how far they travel in their electric vehicles.”

What are top 10 metro areas for electric vehicle owners?

These are the top 10 places for electric vehicle owners in the United States, iSeeCars said, ranked by the ratio of residents to chargers:

1. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
2. San Diego
3. Los Angeles
4. Denver
5. Boston-Manchester, New Hampshire
6. Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto
7. Kansas City
8. Baltimore
9. Fresno-Visalia
10. Seattle-Tacoma, Washington

What are the least friendly metro areas for EVs?

On the other end of the scale, Milwaukee is one of the least friendly places for electric vehicle owners, according to the iseeCars report, with 455 total chargers. That’s 4,230 residents per charger.

Birmingham, Alabama, has a total of 428 chargers, with 3,936 residents per charger, the metropolitan area encompassing Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, has 848 total chargers, with 3,906 residents per charger.

These are the least friendly metro areas for EV owners, according to iSeeCars:

1. Milwaukee
2. Birmingham, Alabama
3. Cleveland-Akron (Canton), Ohio
4. Louisville, Kentucky
5. San Antonio, Texas
6. St. Louis
7. Indianapolis
8. Greensboro-Winston Salem, North Carolina
9. Chicago
10. Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina

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