The Vehicle Technologies Office of the Department of Energy (DOE) claimed in its updated weekly report that plug-in vehicles covered about 19.1 billion miles (31 billion km) of electricity in 2021, as per InsideEVs.
Notably, both the number of miles driven in EV mode in PHEVs and the number of miles driven in BEVs are included in the said report. Compared to the 2020s predicted distance of roughly 13 billion miles, this distance of 19 billion miles is significantly greater.
That increase demonstrates how swiftly driving is becoming electrified. In fact, the market share of plug-in electric vehicles is consistently rising in the United States. It started to have an effect at roughly 4% last year.
In addition, BEVs reported a 57% YoY rise in EV miles while reaching a 24% growth in 2021.
Argonne National Laboratory’s Assessment of Light-Duty Plug-in Electric Vehicles report
The total mileage driven by plug-in electric vehicles in the US (through December 2021) was 68 billion miles, as per Argonne National Laboratory’s Assessment of Light-Duty Plug-in Electric Vehicles in the United States, 2010-2021.
Total Light-Duty Electric Miles Traveled by Plug-In Vehicles in the United States, 2011-2021
By the end of December 2021, the report projected that more than 2.1 million plug-in vehicles have been sold in the US. The sales consist of around 0.8 million plug-in hybrids and 1.3 million all-electric. Furthermore, it has a total battery capacity of about 110 GWh.
Additionally, it is predicted that 19.1 billion electric miles traveled last year resulted in a 700 million gallon (0.54%) decrease in the country’s overall gasoline usage. Meanwhile, approximately 6.1 terawatt-hours of electricity 6.1 TWh is 6,100 GWh) were used by plug-ins or 320 Wh/mile (200 Wh/km).
In 2021, it was estimated that there would be a $1.3 billion gap between fuel costs and energy costs. Furthermore, 68 billion electric miles since 2010 equal 2.5 billion gallons of fuel combined.
Therefore, the total savings are already in the billions of dollars. Hopefully, these figures will continue to grow as the years go by.
