San Diego Achieves Milestone With 10,000 Electric Vehicles On The Road

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Already one of the hottest markets for electric vehicles (EVs), San Diego has just achieved a new significant milestone with more than 10,000 EVs on the road in the region. San Diegans will come together to celebrate this milestone on Saturday, Sept. 20, at Electric Vehicle Day – San Diego: A National Drive Electric Week Event (EV Day) where they can test-drive the latest EVs on the market and learn about incentives for EV drivers.

Since market launch in December 2010, more than 10,000 EVs have been sold or leased in the San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) service territory of San Diego and southern Orange counties. The California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative also announced today that new sales figures show California surpassed 100,000 plug-in car sales, setting a new world record. While there is still a lot of room for growth, these milestones are a critical first step in achieving the governor's ambitious goals of building infrastructure to support one million zero emission vehicles by 2020 and putting 1.5 million zero emission vehicles on California roads by 2025.

"This exciting news underscores the fact that we have an enormous opportunity ahead of us as a region and state to grow the electric vehicle and charging infrastructure markets. Increased efforts are needed beyond these milestones, and with strong collaboration statewide, we will be able to help reach the governor's goal," said James P. Avery, SDG&E senior vice president of power supply. "We invite anyone who is curious about EV ownership to join us at the upcoming Electric Vehicle Day event on Sept. 20 at Liberty Station, which is expected to be the largest gathering of EVs in San Diego's history."

Electric Vehicle Day – San Diego: A National Drive Electric Week Event (sdge.com/ev) will take place on Saturday, Sept. 20, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Liberty Station. The event will feature a ride-and-drive with the latest EVs on the market and experts will be on hand to discuss special low electricity rates and incentives for drivers. San Diego's Electric Vehicle Day is being hosted by SDG&E in partnership with Center for Sustainable Energy and CleanTECH San Diego, and coincides with National Drive Electric Week, Sept. 15–21, where ride-and-drives are taking place from Hawaii to Vermont.

SDG&E has established a robust clean transportation program in response to its customers' growing adoption of EVs both at home and in commercial fleets. There are now more than 600 public charging stations available to serve the ever-growing number of EVs in the region. Additionally, the all-electric car sharing company car2go launched their first fleet in San Diego and now has more than 380 cars in the area. 

SDG&E offers EV drivers a special low electricity rate when they program their cars to charge at night (visit sdge.com/ev for more information). This ensures that the electric grid will be able to support the amount of EVs being added to the region. Additionally, federal tax credits and state rebates totaling up to $10,000 are available to EV drivers.

The utility also acts as a resource for businesses and multi-family communities to provide them national best practices and standards in installing charging equipment in the easiest and most cost-effective way possible. Visit sdge.com/ev for more information.

SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides safe and reliable energy service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and 861,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The utility's area spans 4,100 square miles. SDG&E is committed to creating ways to help customers save energy and money every day. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego. Connect with SDG&E's Customer Contact Center at 800-411-7343, on Twitter (@SDGE) and Facebook.

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SOURCE San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)