“We are anticipating the end of the fossil fuel economy,” [California Congressman Mark] DeSaulnier said. “If you don’t prepare for the transition, you’re going to be left behind…”
— from an article by reporter Dustin Gardiner, published in the San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 2020.
I’m pleased to share, this morning, a letter contributed by local activist and businessman Udgar Parsons, concerning his experiences owning an EV (Electric Vehicle) in Pagosa Springs these past two years. You can read his letter here, and get a sense of what it’s like to own an EV in a rural town.
I have no idea how many other people own EVs here in Pagosa — apparently, there are only about 25,000 EVs in Colorado, out of 1.8 million private vehicles registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles — and I would imagine nearly all of those 25,000 EVs are tooling around in Denver or Boulder or similar places dominated by ‘progressive’ political views.
I mean, let’s face it. Electric Vehicles are a political issue, and a political choice, at this point in America’s history.
Several of the candidates campaigning for the Democratic Party presidential nomination over the past few months have proposed a nationwide conversion to electric vehicles. Bernie Sanders has proposed moving the entire transportation sector to zero-emissions vehicles by 2030 through hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives to trade in old cars and trucks. (Zero-emission vehicles can be all-electric, or hydrogen-powered.) Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg made the case for a 2035 deadline to replace gas-burning passenger vehicles, for example, while Cory Booker of New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren were aiming for 2030.
And we’re not talking only about compact sedans. Ford Motor Company seems to be preparing customers for the electric future with a campaign to counter ‘myths’ about new electric vehicles like its upcoming electric pickup trucks. For example:
France and the United Kingdom are planning to phase out sales of gas and diesel vehicles by 2040. China is making a big push to build out its own electric car industry, and India’s government is aggressively pursuing a transition as well. Norway wants to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles by 2025, and it has made surprisingly rapid progress; 43% of all new cars sold there in 2019 were EVs, and the country has set a goal to have zero-emission vehicles comprise at least 55 percent of new car sales this year.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, the Trump administration is loosening regulations to allow cars to burn more gasoline… only to get push-back from the same auto companies that would seemingly benefit from such relaxed regulations. The administration even launched an anti-trust inquiry into four automakers – Ford, Volkswagen, Honda, and BMW – who came to an agreement with regulators in California on stricter mileage standards…
… California being, as we all know, our most populous state, and the state with the clearest political intentions to create an all-electric transportation grid… sooner, rather than later. California has more automobiles than any other US state — with more than 14.86 million vehicles registered in 2017, seven times as many as Colorado. California also leads in terms of annual car sales, with almost one million cars sold in 2017. If you are selling cars, you probably want to be friends with the politicians in California.
President Trump is not selling cars in California, and has zero chance of winning any electoral votes in the overwhelmingly Democratic Golden State. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in California by a 2-to-1 margin: 62% vs. 32%.
In September, Trump announced his administration was revoking California’s authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards, which had effectively required automakers to produce zero-emissions vehicles. Since 2013 California had been operating under a federal waiver that permitted it to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. Thirteen other states follow California’s lead on emission standards, and together those 14 states account for more than 40% of the US automobile market. Multiple lawsuits are now in progress, challenging the Trump administration’s power to revoke California standards, and challenging California’s right to set its own standards. The strife could be affecting electric-vehicle growth in the United States, which declined last year by more than 6%. Overall vehicle sales declined as well, by about 2%.
Meanwhile, electric vehicles remain relatively unaffordable for the average family, even though the average EV price dropped last year from $64,300 to $55,600 — a 13% decline over the previous year, but still about $20,000 higher than the price of the average gas-powered vehicle. Most of the EV price drop is thanks to Tesla’s success selling its Model 3, which has a basic sticker price of $38,990 before incentives, a price that’s actually lower — after incentives — than the average gasoline vehicle.
Tesla currently dominates our electric car market with nearly 80% of EV sales in the US.
One of our Daily Post readers suggested yesterday that EVs cannot be considered “environmentally friendly” because the electricity they use is still generated by coal — one of the dirtiest fossil fuels around. That comment sparked my curiosity, especially in light of the ongoing conflicts between La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) and their primary electricity supplier, Tri-State Generation and Transmission. Tri-State, in an apparent effort to ensure the financial viability of their coal-fired generating facilities, has put up numerous roadblocks to co-op electrical customers like LPEA, to prevent the development of locally-owned renewable energy sources. As a result, LPEA has been researching the potential cost of breaking its long-term contract with Tri-State.
According to the LPEA website:
[Tri-State] uses coal (56%) and natural gas (4%) as their primary fuel sources in the generation of electricity for LPEA’s members. Renewable energy (32%) is a critical secondary fuel achieved through a mixture of solar projects, wind farms, hydropower, heat and methane recovery in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming…
But as I mentioned in Part One, the tale of the electric vehicle is rather complicated. When I fill up the tank on my conventional gasoline car, only about 20% of the fuel will be used to move my car down the road. An internal combustion engine is notoriously inefficient, and most of the energy — like, about 80% — is lost to mechanical processes like combustion, friction, pumping, braking, and control systems. When I buy $50 worth of gas, only about $10 actually goes towards moving my car.
When I buy $50 worth of electricity for my EV, about $30 goes into propelling my car. In essence, I get three times as much bang for my buck.
Even more, if I use the free charging station in Centennial Park…
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.