According to its new report, Electric Vehicle Geographic Forecasts, Pike Research found that Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, D.C. and Delaware should be among those states with the highest EV adoption rates.

What might interest electric utilities preparing for EV integration are those influencing factors that make forecasting where and when PEVs will concentrate no simple matter.

Dave Hurst, Pike senior analyst, said several things will influence where the largest numbers of PEVs are adopted. "Demographics, consumer attitudes and available infrastructure will all help determine the uptake of PEVs in different states." And manufacturers' rollout schedules will make a difference, too. New York and California now have more than half of the PEVs in the U.S., but there just aren't many available in southern and rural states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Wyoming and Alaska.

Essentially, Pike says utilities in states with high concentrations of PEVs (like Southern California Edison and Consolidated Edison in New York) will need to crank up their preparations faster than other regions.

The report also notes that consumer attitudes about PEVs vary drastically by region. A Pike positive opinion index gave a high score of 4.36 for Northern California, while the number for North Dakota – 0.07 – reflects an essentially negative attitude.

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