The state of California leads the nation when it comes to facilitating the use of electric vehicles (EV), according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
“When you can drive an electric vehicle that's been charged by solar energy, you are getting about as clean as you can get with personal transportation,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst with iSeeCars in Orange County.
The State Transportation Electrification Scorecard found the Golden State to be leading in the effort towards setting deadlines for electrifying transit buses, heavy trucks, and commercial vehicles.
“It makes sense given that there’s twice the market share for electric vehicles here and around 5% versus the nation, which is still under 2%,” Brauer told the Southern California Record. “So, if there's going to be a state that seized adoption of electric vehicles comprehensively first, it's almost surely going to be California.”
California earned 91 of 100 possible points on the scorecard, according to an ACEEE press release, followed by 63.5 points for New York, 59 in Washington, DC, 56 for Maryland, and 54.5 in Massachusetts.
“The weather generally here, certainly in Southern California and also throughout the Central Valley, you have a fairly good amount of sunshine, which is very helpful for finding clean energy to charge these vehicles,” Brauer said. “Even as the rest of the country is essentially in a deep freeze, California is still relatively shielded from it because of our location and weather patterns and that puts a checkbox in the favor of California going all-electric.”
Incentives such as offering assistance to lower-income drivers to replace older cars with zero- or near-zero-emissions vehicles, as well as rebates, tax credits, and grants to buy large electric pickups and delivery trucks, are helping California maintain its EV leadership.
“Once more people buy electric vehicles that by itself will make them more affordable and once the battery costs come down, which is happening, that will make them more affordable,” Brauer said. “3d printing entire cars will reduce costs substantially. So, we'll keep seeing those prices drop. It's not gonna happen tomorrow but it should happen fairly consistently over the next 10 years.”
One obstacle to the proliferation of EVs is access to a charging station, according to the scorecard.
“To get people to buy electric vehicles as readily as they buy internal combustion vehicles, there needs to be an equivalent level of options to refill, meaning you don't have to search high and low for an electric vehicle charging station because they are as common as gas stations,” Brauer said.
Another hurdle is the fact that the supply of energy of any form can be interrupted. For example, a winter storm in Texas has caused power outages due to the unreliability of wind and solar farms, according to media reports, and foreign oil embargos have historically caused shortages in gasoline supply.
“Don't assume electric vehicles are automatically more reliable,” Brauer added. “They are automatically more or less equally vulnerable to energy supply interruptions as other types of vehicles and all types of energy supply.”