Tesla vehicles delivered

EV charging stations and Tesla deliveries have grown together with a correlation of 0.993, which is the kind of number that would be suspicious if we did not already know that one company single-handedly created both the demand for EVs and the largest charging network in the country. This is less a spurious correlation and more a supply-demand graph wearing a disguise. The chargers enable the cars, the cars justify the chargers, and the scatter plot is basically a Tesla earnings presentation.

Tesla deliveries grew from about 50,000 in 2015 to over 1.3 million by 2022, while public EV charging stations grew from about 30,000 to over 160,000. The correlation is almost uncomfortably direct: Tesla operates the Supercharger network (the largest in the US), and the growth of EVs from all manufacturers created the demand that drove third-party charger installation. Both curves are measuring the same market from different angles—the vehicles and the infrastructure that serves them. This is one of the rare cases where the correlation is genuinely not spurious.

Eight years of chargers and Tesla deliveries is one of the least spurious correlations on this site, because the two variables are directly connected by market demand and infrastructure investment. The cars need chargers, the chargers attract cars, and the correlation is simply a market working as markets do. For once, the scatter plot is telling the truth. The charge completes, the delivery ships, and the relationship is real.