I have been spending a lot of time in New York City recently. I have a daughter and granddaughter who live there, and I love what the city has to offer in terms of art, theater, and live music. So that I could bring my pooch along, I have been driving instead of taking the train.
Recently I pulled into Manhattan for a few weeks, with my EV showing a remaining range of about 60 miles as I parked.
I didn’t use my car the entire time I was there, other than moving it to the other side of the street as the streetsweeper came by on Mondays and Thursdays.
During the last week I was there I began to hear about the deep freeze the Midwest was experiencing, and the impact it was apparently having on EVs there. I decided I probably should charge my car in the city before I left instead of waiting to do it on the road. When I got into my car, I was pleased to see that my range had only dropped by a few miles since arriving, with that presumably being because of the cold.
As far as I can tell, all the chargers in Manhattan are inside of parking garages. My car can use a fast (Level 3) charger, and the car told me there were 3 such stations in the city. I had a fleeting thought about that not being very many but thankfully one of the locations was nearby, near Battery Park.
The chargers were in a private parking garage under a new building on the Hudson that has a small shopping mall among other things. There were only four separate chargers and each was occupied. So, a valet took my car and my phone number and said I would get a text when it was fully charged. I went to the mall to get a cup of coffee and fire up my laptop.
It was more than an hour before I got the text. (a full charge at a fast charger normally takes me about 30 minutes). I went to retrieve my car.
It cost me $68 in parking fees to charge my car.
That doesn’t include the electricity.
Now you may be adding this recent experience of mine to a list of reasons why not to buy an EV. But I am relating this story not as a complaint – I love my car - but as a reminder to all of us as to why we are talking about – and driving – EVs.
Any good list of cons should be accompanied by a list of pros. And those are multiple when it comes to EVs, especially one that I want to highlight in a moment.
EVs are getting a lot of media ink these days and the themes seems to be all over the place. The problems with charging stations, or lack thereof, is a big focus. That is a legitimate issue. As I have noted previously, it seems that both industry and government got all caught up in the car itself, without making the proper preparation and taking the necessary steps to have the charging infrastructure ready for the vehicles that were being promoted, incentivized, and sold. Instead, everyone seems to have focused too much on range, and range anxiety. Speaking for myself, with a charger on the side of my house for overnight top-offs, I care about where the chargers are when I am travelling – especially the fast (Level 3) ones that my car is able to use.
Some EV headlines talk about manufacturers like Ford or GM “blinking” and pulling back on their commitment and manufacturing quota and turning back to production of Hybrid vehicles. Yet other headlines show other manufacturers staying the course and reinforcing their commitment.
EVs have become a political hot potato, especially for President Biden as auto workers continue to be concerned about labor downsizing that may occur with a turn to all EVs. With an eye on a swing state like auto-centric Michigan, there are rumors about the Administration pulling back on the about-to-be-released EPA rules on future tailpipe emissions, rules which have been designed to accelerate the switch to EVs.
EVs are obviously having growing pains. But no matter what they are, are they enough to cause moves to slow down the transition from gasoline to electricity?
According to Bloomberg NEF’s 2024 Sustainability Fact Book, emissions from power plants went down in 2023. Emissions from the transportation sector, the largest emitting sector, went up.
That means that a car that uses electricity got cleaner last year, depending on its location and the local electric generation mix. And all signs and predictions are for the generation mix to continue to get better across the country since solar and wind are the cheapest things to add.
That means that a person’s choice when buying their next car is not the choice they might first think it is.
At this point, when we make any choice involving energy, we are likely making a climate-related choice. Most people know at this point that the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of climate change. We also know that large energy-related purchases, if they use fossil fuels, are going to emit carbon dioxide and contribute (no matter how small) to global warming.
When a person buys a car with an internal combustion engine (ICE) they have made a choice to continue to burn fossil fuel.
Now before you accuse me of getting on my high EV-horse, I will readily admit that I am lucky to be able to use an EV without any impact on my lifestyle or workstyle. I have a stand-along house and was able to mount a charger on the side of it. I had the means to have more models to select from when I bought the car.
It is not so simple and straightforward for others, especially for those living in cities and multi-family building or for the owners of the 50% of vehicles that don’t have a dedicated parking spot. I get that.
But my point is, do we really have a choice when it comes to buying and driving EVs. Should buyers who could buy an EV instead purchase an ICE car that will be driven on the road, and emitting CO2, for years to come.
Most Americans, when surveyed, say that they are concerned about climate change and want to do something about it.
They need to realize that they may already be taking climate actions – good and bad – via the purchasing decisions they make. They need to realize that they are making climate choices that they are not really thinking about.
For years now, the world as a whole has made a choice about climate change but is has been the default choice of not doing anything different that might reduce emissions. The result has been that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than at any time in the last 4 million years – before humans walked the earth. The result is that we are already seeing impacts of climate change, with more changes already baked into the system.
When it comes to our purchases, do we really have the choices we think we have?
Might be something to ponder.