Big Chunks Of The US Couldn't Care Less About Tesla

Google has released its annual Zeitgeist, which breaks down what people searched for in 2013.

Not surprisingly, Tesla Motors was the top trending car company in the U.S., meaning it saw the largest increase in search volume from the previous period (2012).

But a closer look at the data reveals that not all of America is intrigued by Elon Musk's efforts to get people into electric cars.

Google breaks down search interest by state and metro region, and it's clear that people are some areas just don't care.

Here's state map. The area with the highest search volume gets a 100, and others are scored relative to that. Note how little interest residents of the Dakotas and Wyoming have in Musk's electric dreams. For comparison, those three states were among the most interested in Ford.

Here's the breakdown by metro region. West Coast and Northeast cities are the most interested in Tesla, with significant pockets in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, Austin, and Miami. That makes sense. Electric cars, whose batteries need regular charging, are most useful in urban areas.

Interestingly, the dark blue patches of interest pretty closely match the current distribution of Tesla's supercharger stations, which allow drivers on road trips to charge up along the way: