Momentum for electric vehicles (EVs) has been building for years, as society looks for ways to cut its dependence on fossil fuels and reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases.

A number of developments are helping to accelerate the transition to EVs. Not the least among them, President Joe Biden issued an executive order in August calling for half of all new vehicles to be electric or hybrid electric cars by 2030.

Following the lead of the federal government, states are also making preparations. The auto resource website Bumper has compiled a ranking of the "Best and Worst States to Own Electric Cars". The report looks at ten measures: five financial measures and five infrastructure measures.

The five financial measures include the number of rebates and tax incentives, recharge cost, average price of gas, mean travel time to work and the cost of an EV versus a gas-powered vehicle.

In the infrastructure category, the report looks at the number of new charging stations since 2017, the number of charging stations per 100,000 population, the number of EV supply equipment (EVSE) ports per 100 charging stations, the number of EVSE ports per 100 EV vehicle registrations and EV registrations as a percentage of all motor vehicles.

The report makes a number of findings. Overall, Washington came out on top as the best state for owning an EV, with a score of 13.6. (States are scored like golf—the lower, the better.) Washington is joined by Illinois as the top two states for financial incentives. California and Vermont have the best infrastructure for EVs.

California leads in other categories, too. Followed closely by New York, it has the highest number of new EV charging stations, with 11,833. New York has 2,273. California also leads the country with registered EVs, with 425,300 registered vehicles as of December 2020, representing nearly half (41.7%) of the nation's total.