This diary is an outreach from EV Revolution and my #RbPi series, joining the Climate Strike Blogathon led by the indomitable Angmar and OccupyStephanie.
It is often said — and I’ve heard it again from several speakers on the podium of our march-end rally in front of Seattle City Hall last Friday — that “The Climate Crisis won’t be solved via Lifestyle Changes alone.”
I agree with the general message. This is not an individual issue. We need policy and priority changes. We need changes to our material culture including the economy.
But there’s a risk of taking the statement too far, and...
...falling into the moral hazard of “We are all guilty so no one is guilty, focus on changing the [political] system, not on changing our own personal choices until the system changes.” ...missing those “lifestyle” and “consumer” changes, that might have an outsized collective impact.The prime example is reducing our meat consumption, in particular red meat, and increasing the relative proportion of organic products in our grocery cart. Besides the direct impact, if the change is permanent or accelerating, you are also sending a demand-reduction signal to the food market, while helping make planet-healthier alternatives more available and more affordable to others.
And if you talk about it and promote it in your social circle, you are affecting others. Once a critical mass of individual-decision changes accumulates, the door may also open to policy changes that will further encourage reduction.
Electric vehicle adoption belongs in the same category. Except that unlike meat and organics, in most leading EV countries it’s the policymakers who have been ahead of consumers (Drumpf regime excepted). The individual potential EV consumer is still, all too often, missing in action, particularly in America. Most automakers, in particular the US Big Three, have interpreted the discrepancy as a signal to delay their progress.
American consumers’ cold shoulder to EVs not named Tesla, also translates into missed opportunities as citizens and activists. What kind of opportunities? See the rare, inspiring exception reported Sep. 8 by A Siegel: prodded by Mothers Out Front Fairfax, publicly-owned utility Dominion Energy is putting together bus makers and school districts, to electrify Virginia’s school bus fleet.
If MOF Fairfax had Meh’ed and pushed back at EVs as “only a lifestyle consumer step”, as some progressives still do, they wouldn’t have even thought of this opportunity. Let alone created it and made it happen.
I will show this pic again and again: Shenzhen, China’s “Silicon Valley”, had already electrified its *entire* bus fleet in 2017. What about us?
Relatively speaking, electric city/school buses are the easiest and highest-impact part of the fleet to electrify. Literally the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of CO2 and particulate pollution reduction. Yet the West is lagging miserably. China has been placing ~100,000 new electric buses on the road every year since 2015. Meanwhile, after years of “testing” and “pilots” (many of them with Chinese-made buses), the US and Europe combined are barely reaching a thousand/year. Possibly, not even that.
Time to catch up, people! More below the fold.
Are You Sure it’s not just your Comfort Zone Talking?People seem to be curiously, persistently, ignorant about EVs. But in one Google Minute you can find out the ranges, prices, subsidies, etc., for leading EVs in the US. Or you can use the resource list at this diary’s bottom and save yourself a Google Minute.
In another Google Minute you can learn the difference between a “pure” BEV and a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), both of which have existed in the market for nearly a decade, and realize that if BEVs don’t meet your needs then PHEVs are pretty much for everyone, or at least for the majority of people.
But perhaps before that… since this is a Climate Strike blogathon… you might still buy into the “EVs are bad for the environment” rhetoric, most of which can be traced back to oil and climate-denialist disinfo shops. Or you might worry about your personal EV’s current footprint, rather than remember that this is not an individual issue. it’s a society-wide, global game. Either way, concerns about EVs’ climate cred might be holding you back.
I’ll spare you the Google Minute and send you straight to RbPi 13. Or you can settle for the Cliffs Notes version below.
Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes:
Yes, we must decarbonize our transportation fleet. Yes, we must also decarbonize our electric grid. Yes, we must also decarbonize other main sectors such as industry and agriculture. And last but not least, Yes, we must prevent our societies from self-inflicting needless political mayhem that either brings to power the worst kind of people, or results in outright war. Because doing items 1-3 on this list is much much harder when that happens.We must do all that simultaneously. Yes, we must walk, chew gum, talk on the phone, and scan the scenery all at the same time. This, by the way, is the essence of AOC’s Green New Deal blueprint. Specifically, clean grid is clause C in the itemized action plan, clean transportation is H, and manufacturing/agriculture in F-G. No waiting for one to happen before going all-in on the others.
In particular, we cannot wait around driving ICE, until the grid is pure enough to our liking. It will be simply too late. Not in the sense that your particular ICE will be the one that fries the planet beyond repair— but in the sense that the EV economy needs time and a big push in order to eat into the mainstream auto market.
You may also notice that all leading environmental NGOs and all Western climate-proactive governments are pro-EV, so perhaps your doubts and concerns are well-addressed, and EVs are indeed a good choice in the battle for our climate.
This is based on 2016’s grid mix. EV footprint is even lower now, and will get lower every year.
Meanwhile it is the oil lobby, not the coal or gas lobby, that has created and led the climate-denialist industry. It is the oil industry, not gas or coal, that is the strongest power fomenting wars and foul regimes all around the world. How about pitching in to take the oil lobby down? Gentlewomen and men, we have the technology. Missing is the rush of broad, consistently increasing consumer EV demand, a rush that will send all automakers scrambling to dish out more and more EVs, rather than hedge their bets as most of them still do. Yes I know, there has been a Tesla rush. But a single limited-volume brand is not enough. So many excellent-value EVs not named Tesla are all but ignored in the US.
So… are you sure your EV-delaying isn’t just your comfort zone talking?
Oh, and if you live out on a farm at the end of a 100-mile dirt road, or cannot spare $5 to buy a car let alone $5k, this isn’t about you personally. It’s about, e.g., your cousin and their partner who live in the ‘burbs and drive an SUV and a minivan, replacing their cars every 3-5 years, averaging 30 miles a day each car at 12 miles/gallon. All the while worrying about the climate crisis. Pester them, instead of commenting on this diary that EVs are not for you personally.
There are Goodies AvailableIn another Google minute you can find out approximately what used EVs are available around you within your price range. Or you can look up my August used-car diary series (RbPi 15, 15b, 15c) and learn that you might find a great highly-reliable used PHEV for $6-13k, and stop using gas for most of your daily driving.
Or if you are more daring, and/or willing to mix it up with some car sharing/rental when the need arises, or your household simply has 2 ICE cars so one of them can be replaced today without batting an eyelash — you can find nice used BEVs for $5-15k.
Or if you are able to lease/buy a new one, discover that BEV ranges have gone dramatically up, while prices are competitive. In fact, my #1 recommended BEV the Chevy Bolt is now selling on average at >$10k off MSRP. Through September 30, you’ll also still get $3750 Fed rebate (GM’s subsidy goes down to $1875 Oct. 1), plus a couple grand state rebate in most blue states and some purple/red ones.
So you might end up spending <$25k including all taxes, on a brand-new 240-mile BEV, still a revolutionary vehicle 2.5 years after its introduction. In 2010 hardly anyone dreamed such a marvel could be available anytime soon at these prices, let alone made by E.V.1-killing GM. And now, Bolts are sitting on dealer lots all across the nation, and Americans are Meh’ing at them as if they were a piece of stale toast.
No, seriously: many people don’t want the Bolt, because they don’t like its interior plastic. Are you kidding me? (btw, GM have improved that so I hear, and 2020 models will have ~20 miles more range)
“Meh.”
If you can get a new Bolt (or a Leaf, or a Model 3, or whatever, just change the automaker name), you will also help GM move more quickly forward with its electrification plans. They have been the poster child of indecision, investing billions to develop the best Chevys ever built (Volt and Bolt), then repeatedly botching the marketing. Putting out a great upgrade in the Gen II Volt, only to kill it 3 years later. Now they are planning big on BEVs, as in also bigger BEVs to better suit US consumer taste. But if consumers continue sending them negative signals, then who knows…
If you still think it’s really all about GM looking for excuses to *not* make EVs, here’s a new flash: in August in China — by far the world’s largest auto market (>1M sales/year and 6% EV market share this year, 5x larger EV quantities than US), joint GM-SAIC venture Baojun took 1st place for August with its new city car, selling nearly 9,000 of them. And in China just like in the US, EV subsidies are shrinking now.
Mini-Rant: It’s just like with VotingRepublican voters are really stupid on policy, and are total suckers for lies and disinformation. Too many of them live in an alternate reality. But they are wise and hyper-lucid on one critical front: they go out and vote. As a block. To the R candidate whomever that might be.
By contrast, the far more informed and aware Dems and progressives, scatter on election day every which way they can at the flimsiest excuse. In 2006 centrist Dems in CT wouldn’t accept Lamont’s primary victory, so they helped Joe Lieberman come back as an “Independent”. And we all remember 2000 and Nader, and don’t get me started on 2016. And those are big elections; Dems cannot even be bothered with voting in the small ones.
Likewise with cars. Most Republicans vote with their wheels for F-150s and Escalades and Rolling Coal. They actively support the Drill Baby Drill economy. Meanwhile, nearly a decade after EVs hit the regular auto market, many progressives love their Biodiesel VW, or their 1990 Civic. Or even drive an Escalade or F-150, because EVs are too weak/expensive/run on coal, or something. Or maybe they want an EV but they hate Elon Musk and cannot forgive GM for E.V.1, and Nissan USA is not unionized so no Leaf for me.
And so, the EV economy loses much of its potential support base because it’s not perfect enough.
And the oil economy continues to laugh all the way to the bank and back to the drilling fields.
Remember:
THERE IS NO PLANET B.
We also don’t have another extra decade to wait, to topple the oil economy before it kills us all. Getting an EV or getting your friends to get an EV might not be the most pure or heroic environmental action you’ll take, but it’s pretty darn effective. And damn necessary.
I’m seeing the Climate Strike week as the start of a wave of New Year Resolutions, at least one new Resolution per month. All of us need to change the way we do things. I for example, am pledging to become more locally involved on EVs, and more connected to the greater EV community.
Yes, we’ve driven EVs since 2012 and I’ve blogged your eyes off about them, and convinced at least several people to go electric. But my dues payments to the local EV association have been… um, patchy. And I’ve never been to their meetings. That’s my own comfort zone talking.
I also forgot (or rather, neglected) to write here about the National Drive Electric Week which had just ended. It was a golden opportunity for many of you wanting to learn more, to meet local EV drivers and advocates face to face and see their vehicles. I missed this opportunity because I pretend to be a hermit sometimes.
So from now on I will change my ways. Then, I might be able to participate one day in bringing about a change like the historic Virginia school bus decision.
Now go get ‘em. Thank you.
BlogathonSeptember 20-27 on DK
September 20 is the launch of an entire week of global climate action. From Friday September 20 to September 27, people of all generations all over the world will be mobilizing.
Here are the dates for the climate strike
https://globalclimatestrike.net/
It has sign ups for strikes all over the world.
(this was also #RbPi 17:)
*The term “EV” covers both “pure” battery-electric (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). IOW: if it has an externally-rechargeable battery, it’s an EV.
(ICE stands for Internal Combustion Engine: the outdated technology still driving >99% of vehicles)
Action Resource TableHere’s Sierra Club. Here’s Union of Concerned Scientists. Here’s Friends of the Earth. Here’s Greenpeace. Here’s the EU position. Here’s my own perspective. |
Maybe you are not in a position to get an EV that meets your needs yet. But you surely know someone who is. Find them and help them get it. |
Note YRWV (tl;dr, in very cold winters range can easily be 30-40% below average), and the good news under Don’t Panic I/II. See this diary for recommended EV model lists. |
New EV purchase deals. AND New EV lease deals (that’s how we got our Leaf!). Updated! Best used EV options. And Cheapie used options. |
Don’t nickel and dime your own personal footprint of buying an EV. Every transition has its costs. We’re playing the long game here. It is long, but urgent: we need YOU to join. |
| EVs consumed ~10% of mined cobalt in 2018. And one-third of EVs have no cobalt at all (e.g., Gen 1 Nissan Leafs, most e-buses). But we must do more to curb “artisanal mines” where child labor/slavery is widespread. DRC’s children deserve better. |
Home of the monthly US plug-in sales scorecard — which has become the standard source for US EV numbers. I write there occasionally ;) |
| Current/historical numbers from most global EV markets. The main resource for my annual Top 10 Countries in the EV Revolution series. |
| EV website and Youtube channel with weekly episodes, by tireless EV pioneer Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield. |
| Newer than insideevs, flashier, but very Tesla-dominated. |
| Often takes a deeper dive into technical and academic articles. |
| Youtube channel created and hosted by English actor Robert Llewellyn. |
| Pretty similar to insideevs, but not limited to EVs only. |
| Daily digest in plain-text format, plus a podcast if you like those. |