Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll made an adept analogy recently when he compared the ongoing transition to electric vehicles to the long-ago transition from literal horsepower to the internal combustion engine.
Many people initially resisted the change based on unresolved issues of cost, reliability and, not least, the availability of roads and other supporting infrastructure for gasoline-fueled vehicles.
Technology, markets and government policy in concert accelerated and completed the transition. Now, a similar process is underway regarding electric vehicles.
Consumers cite cost and battery range — the fear of being stuck without a readily accessible recharge — as the two most significant reasons that they would not yet purchase an electric vehicle.
Markets have begun to address the cost issue. As more manufacturers have rolled out new EV models to compete with the market leader Tesla, prices have plummeted by about 20%, and by about 30% in the used EV market. And manufacturers, which have invested more than $860 billion worldwide ($240 billion in the United States) in EV and battery development, have begun to target middle-income consumers rather than the affluent consumers targeted by EV pioneers in the United States. Chevrolet’s new Equinox EV crossover, for example, will be priced comparably to its gasoline model in the $30,000 range.
Meanwhile, the federal and state governments have begun the process of ensuring that an EV charging station will be available at least every 50 miles along every U.S. interstate highway. Carroll and Sen. Bob Casey of Scranton recently announced the first phase of Pennsylvania’s share of that project, using $33.5 million in federal money, to establish 54 charging high-speed stations in 35 counties, including three each in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties. Businesses where the stations will be installed will cover 20% of the costs.
Meanwhile, the state Legislature must attend to other aspects of the transition, especially creating a new transportation tax structure. Gasoline and diesel taxes now fund PennDOT’s highway work. The state will have to switch to a tax on miles driven to ensure that EV drivers share in the burden.
The EV transition is inevitable; government policy to enable it must be likewise.
— The Citizens’ Voice,
Wilkes-Barre via TNS
