This action flies in the face of overwhelming evidence of climate harms and the legal basis for the determination, as my colleague Dr. Cleetus pointed out in her blog when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin first noted his interest in targeting the finding. This, like so many other recent administrative actions, will be challenged in court and may eventually be determined to be illegal, as it most certainly is.

Congress established EPA to protect public health and welfare—and since climate change pollution is clearly endangering these things, EPA has a responsibility to do something about it. By eliminating the endangerment finding, EPA is trying to avoid its responsibility to act.  This isn’t just bad news for reducing climate emissions and the worsening impacts of climate change that Americans are dealing with on a daily basis from intensified storms to extreme heat, but it’s going to mean spending more at the pump and fewer choices at the dealership.

Reducing climate emissions from US Cars and Trucks is a big deal

Transportation—including the cars, trucks and buses plying our roads everyday—is the LARGEST source of human-caused climate pollution in the US accounting for 28 percent of the annual total. And globally, the US is second only to China in overall annual climate pollution. So yes—our cars and trucks and the gasoline and diesel they burn DO contribute to climate change. And reducing those emissions is important for getting global emissions—and global temperatures—under control.

Alongside the endangerment finding action, the administration also announced it was eliminating all EPA vehicle greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and heavy-duty trucks. Despite the most recent passenger car and heavy-duty truck EPA standards regulations being less ambitious than our analysis suggested was feasible, they represent the largest climate action the US has ever taken, Combined, the latest greenhouse gas standards for cars and heavy-duty trucks would eliminate a total of approximately 8 billion tons of heat-trapping emissions – more than one year of total US climate emissions. EPA’s Draft Regulatory Impact Analysis, released alongside the announcement to eliminate the standards, completely ignores the value of these benefits noting, “The EPA does not attempt to monetize the value, if any, of changes in GHG emissions that result from the proposed action.” We’ll be taking a closer look at what other logical and analytical gymnastics the administration is including in their assessment as we prepare comments on the proposal.

Performance-based vehicle standards deliver results

History has shown that vehicle standards are extremely effective at reducing pollution. Smog-forming pollutants, carbon monoxide, and dangerous particulates from tailpipes have all declined substantially from the 1960s and ‘70s and led to improved air quality and public health. This progress on pollution, along with steadily growing vehicle sales, occurred despite constant cries from the auto industry over the past half a century claiming vehicle pollution standards were bad for business, unachievable, etc. etc. Vehicle standards have been an essential tool to achieving lower tailpipe emissions and more efficient gasoline models as well as bringing an ever-increasing variety of electrified models to market.

The proof is in the pudding. Take this chart from EPA’s latest “Trends Report”. While fuel economy standards accelerated emissions reductions after the oil crisis in the 70’s, in the absence of further regulation (resulting from automaker and oil industry opposition) the emissions from new vehicles rose in the 1990s and early 2000s. Why? Because contrary to what the EPA argues in its proposal, the market does not work to innovate and cut fuel in the absence of regulation. Over the last 20 years, new fuel economy and emissions standards, currently being eliminated by this administration, have pushed new vehicles to the lowest level of emissions on record.

The data don’t lie: Vehicle standards work. Freed from binding fuel economy and emission standards in 90’s and early 2000’s, vehicle pollution increased as well as gasoline consumption. Recent fuel economy and emissions standards being eliminated by this administration have pushed new vehicles to the lowest level of emissions on record. (Source: EPA)

This latest attack on vehicle standards specifically covers EPA’s greenhouse gas standards for cars and commercial medium and heavy-duty trucks.  The first of these EPA standards went into effect in model year 2012 for passenger cars. The figure above illustrates the declining emissions that have occurred for the average vehicle since their implementation.  But here’s a more specific illustrative example of what that means in the real world. 

The Toyota RAV4 is the best-selling SUV in the US. Before EPA standards, it went 15 years with essentially zero improvement in fuel economy or emissions. Thanks to EPA standards, buyers now have options that are 29 to 46 percent more efficient. These more efficient options are saving consumers hundreds of dollars at the gas pump every year while cutting emissions in half for the cleanest models. I don’t know anyone who wants to spend thousands of dollars more on gas—but that’s the path we are headed down by eliminating standards.

Source: EPA and DOE

EPA’s standards haven’t only delivered more choices of lower polluting, and less fuel consuming gasoline cars and trucks. These standards have pushed traditional vehicle makers to add more hybrid and electric vehicle models to their line-ups and encouraged new EV-only companies to bring products to market.  The increased availability of hybrid electric (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV), and Battery Electric (BEV) models driven by vehicle standards (as shown in the figure below) has given consumers more choices to cut their gasoline bills or eliminate them all together. 

Global warming emissions from new vehicles, no matter the type of vehicle, are at record lows, largely through the use of hybrid and plug-in electric technologies deployed by manufacturers in response to EPA standards, exactly the technologies that this administration is now attacking. (Source: EPA)

While the above examples are about passenger vehicles, the story is similar for the heavy-duty trucks. As pointed out in our report on electric truck progress, Ready for Work 2.0.

Now there are 150,000 thousand electric medium and heavy-duty vehicles ranging from large pick-up trucks and delivery vans to a growing number of big rigs.

Source: UCS/S&P Global Mobility 2025 including class 2b through class 8 vehicles.

Reductions in heavy-duty truck emissions, fuel consumption and the increasingly common sight of electric delivery trucks on our streets is no accident. It’s the result of policies like EPAs vehicle standards. 

Instead of trying to continue this success on reducing emissions, lowering consumer costs, and help American automakers lead the global transition to clean vehicles, the Trump administration has moved to eliminate EPA actions that reduce climate pollution.

Oil companies win. You lose.

While some vehicle makers are guilty of fighting against state and federal vehicle standards so they can continue to wallow in global mediocrity, the oil industry is the one laughing all the way to the bank. For decades the oil industry has used fraud and deceit to avoid the realities of climate pollution, so it is no surprise they want to prolong the life of combustion vehicles as long as possible. They just scored big time in Trump’s tax bill, as my colleague details in their recent blog, and were already basking in the glow of Congress’s decision to pull the rug out from under the state clean car and truck standards and neutering the Department of Transportation’s fuel economy standards by eliminate compliance fines. Now they get another gift in in the elimination of EPA rules that would result in US car and truck drivers spending billions more on gasoline and diesel than they would have otherwise.   When Trump offered to payback oil industry donations with political favors, I don’t think oil executives themselves could have even dreamed up that this wishlist would be granted within 7-months of his reentering the White House.

How much will the rest of us be paying to the oil industry, you ask? If all of these rollbacks take effect, there’s nothing stopping the auto-industry from backsliding on the progress that’s been made. But just looking at the benefits of the rules that have yet to take effect gives a good idea. Owners of new passenger cars subject to the standards between 2027 and 2032 would have saved an estimated $6000 over the life of the vehicle. Eliminating the Phase 3 heavy-duty truck GHG standards for model years 2027 through 2032 will increase net costs to truck drivers by $2 billion. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

A farce, with consequences

The attack on logic, reason, and just plain common sense might be comic, if it wasn’t so serious as pointed out in my colleagues “danger season” blog post.  The irony of this past week’s extreme heat event impacting more than 150 million Americans happening at the same time as the administration’s latest climate-denial move was painfully apparent in this Fox news clip.

This is the time to accelerate, not throw us into reverse. Instead, the White House is seeking to trash these vital protections, using the flimsiest and most self-serving of rationales, showing yet again it is willing to sacrifice public protections for polluters’ gain. For US drivers, it means less choices at the dealership and more pain at the pump. 

On its first day in office, the Trump administration has indicated it wants to send the latest versions of these effective standards to the trash heap, issuing a directive to regulatory agencies to suspend, revise or rescind regulations inconsistent with the new national policy of “ensuring a level regulatory playing field for consumer choice in vehicles.” In other words, if a regulation mentions “electric vehicles,” it’s probably on the target list. Agencies will have 30 days to compile a list of offending regulatory actions, which are sure to include federal rules that would reduce pollution from new cars and heavy-duty trucks sold through 2032 and to undermine California’s clean car standards which are effective through 2035.   

The executive order also attacks clean vehicle incentives and federal support for electric vehicle charging stations, important complementary policies helping families around the nation make the switch to cleaner vehicles.

What’s at stake? Our health, some of the largest climate actions in US history, and more

Transportation is the largest source of US climate emissions, so it’s not surprising that undermining recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions targeting climate emissions from cars and trucks will be a major setback in meeting climate targets. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In the US, automakers are subject to vehicle standards set by both the federal government and California.  California is allowed to set standards stronger than the federal government under the 1970 Clean Air Act provisions in recognition that California, and many other states which have adopted CA standards, serve an important role as laboratories of innovation controlling air pollution in novel ways. President Trump is targeting both federal and California vehicle standards in his recent executive order—standards that not only reduce climate emissions but also slash air pollutants like nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Undermining these rules will have major negative environmental, health, energy, and consumer impacts. A number of standards covering different types of vehicles and emissions have been updated and finalized during the Biden Administration’s term. If rolled backed, the enormous health, climate, and consumer benefits of these rules would be reduced or completely eliminated.

Vehicle standards likely to be targeted include:

NHTSAs Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards—In addition to EPA’s passenger vehicle standards, complementary but separate fuel economy standards targeting improvement in miles per gallon efficiency were also updated and finalized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in June of 2024. These standards are also under threat by the Trump administration, which has falsely labeled them as an “EV mandate.” In reality, NHTSA is prohibited by law from considering or requiring the adoption of alternative fueled vehicles, like EVs, in setting CAFE standards. Rolling back these commonsense standards would increase fuel costs by $23 billion, increase gasoline consumption by 70 billion gallons through 2050, while adding more than 700 million metric tons (CO2e) of climate pollution, according to NHTSA.

Federal Heavy-Duty Truck Standards—Heavy-duty commercial trucks are the second largest source of transportation climate emissions behind passenger vehicles. In March of last year, EPA finalized the “Phase 3″ Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for heavy-duty vehicles that would reduce pollution from new trucks between model year 2027 through 2032.

These rules are expected to result in more than $13 billion in net societal benefits coming from a combination of avoided hospitalizations and illness like asthma attacks, and climate impacts. The Phase 3 standards alone are expected to result in annualized net savings to truck owners and operators of more than $2 billion as a result of lower operating costs from lower emission diesel and gasoline trucks as well as electric trucks. 

These new standards are more than feasible and, as UCS pointed out during the rulemaking process, don’t take full advantage of the fuel saving and zero emission technology available to reduce truck pollution. But they are an important step forward and rolling them back will result in more pollution, more illness and hospitalizations, and higher costs for industry and consumers.  

California’s clean cars leadership at risk

In addition to targeting federal rules, the Trump Administration is also targeting California’s leadership on clean cars and trucks. California is allowed under federal law to set standards for cars and trucks that are equal to or stronger than federal standards and has exercised this right for more than 50 years. Other states have the ability to adopt these more health protective standards and more than a dozen have.  

The last Trump administration attempted to withdraw a previously approved waiver for California to implement its standards for light-duty vehicles and it appears positioned to do so again with waivers approved by the Biden Administration’s EPA on the chopping block. The two most significant rules under threat are the Advanced Clean Cars II (ACCII) regulation—and the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule. The ACCII rule gradually ramps up new vehicle sales requirements to 100% by 2035. This rule is often mischaracterized as a gasoline vehicle ban, when in actuality, 20% of sales could be plug-in hybrid vehicles which have a gasoline combustion engine, but can travel some distance on electric power. ACT on the other hand requires manufacturers of heavy-duty trucks to sell an increasing share of zero-emission trucks with annual targets that vary based on the different sizes and types of trucks and is the driving force for clean truck manufacturing and deployment across the country.

California’s requirements for passenger cars and heavy-duty trucks have been more aggressive in pushing deployment of zero-emission vehicle technology and instrumental in expanding the electric vehicle options currently available today to car buyers and trucking fleet owners all around the country. Evidence of California’s leadership is widespread: more than 25% of new passenger vehicle sales in the state are electric, gasoline consumption is declining, and electric truck sales are on the rise. California is demonstrating that slashing climate and air pollution from cars and trucks is possible, and it’s unique authority under the Clean Air Act provides other states to follow it’s lead if they choose to.

Attacking CA’s ability to implement its standards will have lasting consequences—not just for the golden state, but for all the states looking to protect their residents from vehicle pollution and ultimately the nation as consumers across the country have fewer clean vehicles to choose from.

These rules work! Vehicle efficiency is at an all-time high—thanks to common-sense vehicle standards

It’s hard to overstate the importance of standards in making progress in making real world impacts on reducing air pollution, cutting climate emissions, and reducing petroleum use. Sure, auto industry innovation is rarely standing still, but history has demonstrated that safety, efficiency and pollution innovations don’t deliver without standards in place

A quick glance at average fuel economy of new vehicles over the last 50 years illustrates this clearly. Fuel economy standards were first established in the 1970s and average new vehicle miles per gallon (mpg) increased significantly. For the next two decades standards barely budged – fuel economy got worse but auto industry kept on innovating away. Finally, with new standards in place in the late 2000s auto companies were compelled to make improvements across the board, with average new vehicle fuel economy now approaching 30 mpg.

Vehicle standards have given consumers more choices, while saving them money at the pump

When Americans head to their local dealership to seek out a new or used vehicle, standards and regulations that automakers have to meet are very likely not top of mind. But the impact of these rules are clearly evident on the lot.

Consumers now have the option to choose pick-up trucks with 20-plus miles per gallon ratings, hybrid vehicles with 50 mile per gallon stickers, and plug-in electric vehicles. These options have all been spurred by standards and that ensure all automakers are moving toward a cleaner, healthier future, the nation is less vulnerable to global oil price shocks, and consumers pay less at the pump. The Trump Administration’s actions will take us backwards on all of these fronts.  

A gift to oil companies sure, but also to US automakers’ international competition

The only beneficiaries from this proposed action to rollback standards are the oil industry and America’s auto industry competitors who will continue to gain global market share as US automakers fall behind. It comes as no surprise that President Trump is happy to hand out a present to the oil industry—he allegedly promised he would in exchange for campaign contributions in May of last year. And President Trump’s allies appear to be thanking him with an advertising campaign.

More worrying for the US auto industry is the decline in US automaker global competitiveness. Being at the forefront of technology innovation helped US automakers be competitive abroad. But global competition is heating up and US automakers are already behind. The combination of standards, consumer incentives, and investments in manufacturing, domestic supply chains, and EV charging infrastructure contained in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are a historic investment in the future of the U.S. auto industry. Yet all of this is now at risk – and somehow eliminating all of these investments and standards is characterized as good for the auto industry. You might think automakers understand this and would resist changes to rules that provide the benefit of regulatory certainty over the next several years. But their long history of resisting regulation (well documented in our Time for a U-Turn report) suggests the temptation of weaker rules is just too great.   

Is this time any different than the last time President Trump did this?   

These new attempts to rollback standards might all sound more than vaguely familiar. In 2017, the Trump administration took similar actions, with EPA revisiting a previous determination that passenger vehicle standards through 2025 were appropriate. In an about face, EPA under Scott Pruitt determined that they should be made less stringent, ignoring ample evidence that the standards were not only feasible, but positive for consumers as well as jobs and the environment. (My colleague Dave Cooke wrote about this in his blog, “EPA Rolls back fuel efficiency standards at the request of automakers”)

Ultimately, EPA proposed new standards despite their regulatory analysis clearly showing that the weaker rules would cost consumers more and lead to increases in premature deaths from increased air pollution. Though it took nearly President Trump’s entire first term, the rule rollbacks were ultimately finalized in 2020. Even many automakers were frustrated and ended up making separate agreements with California to comply with more ambitious targets. Over 175 members of Congress spoke out against these rollbacks. And the early part of the Biden administration was spent clawing back some of the benefits lost through President Trump’s rollbacks.

This time around, there is more at risk. Climate change is accelerating and the impacts on our daily lives is becoming all too clear as climate-fueled disasters occur on a regular basis. The longer we take to reduce emissions, the higher the cost. The administration may also try to move more quickly this time. 

What happens next?  

While the Administration would likely prefer to make these rollbacks effectively immediately, legally they can’t and the recent announcement is only the beginning of a process. EPA and NHTSA will need to justify any actions to modify their rules, including an opportunity for public input. And the incoming administration doesn’t have the legal authority to rescind or revoke the waivers already granted to states to protect their residents. 

Just as we were last time President Trump targeted common sense climate, public health, and transportation policies, UCS will be there every step of the way. UCS provided evidence supporting the benefits of retaining strong standards, highlighted the ways in which the administration’s rollbacks would harm the public and supported successful state efforts to blunt the impact of federal rollbacks. We are again ready to track, debunk, and fight this attack on bedrock health and climate protections and will make it hard for the administration to ignore the facts.

And we need your help. Join the more than 50,000 people who have already signed our open letter to Congress to protect independent science and support science-based decision making. By signing the petition, you will also get notified about future actions and opportunities to protect important clean transportation policies in the coming months.

Well we’ve been here before—a Trump administration coming on the heels of an administration that prioritized cleaning the air we breathe, tackling climate change, and investing in the future of the auto industry.

Prior to Donald Trump taking office in 2017, the Obama administration had made significant investments in clean vehicle manufacturing and tax credits for zero-emission vehicles. It updated regulatory standards to ensure America’s cars, pick-up trucks, and heavy-duty trucks would get cleaner and more efficient over time. 

After President Trump left the White House in 2021, under the Biden administration, billions of dollars have been invested in clean vehicle and battery manufacturing, electric vehicle incentives, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Laws. In addition, during the last four years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated vehicle standards for cars and trucks to reflect the growing availability of fuel savings and zero-emission vehicle technologies. These standards, the largest climate regulatory action taken by the EPA, will dramatically improve the air we breathe.

Transportation accounts for the largest share of climate change emissions in the US. What happens to clean transportation progress over the next four years will have major consequences for meeting our climate goals.

Based on what President Trump did in his first administration, what he campaigned on this year, and what Project 2025 promises to do, there will be impacts in the second Trump administration for the US auto industry, electric vehicle deployment, mobility choices, and the regulations designed to protect public health and our climate from car and truck pollution.

What clean transportation experts expect will happen

If past is prologue, we can expect the upcoming Trump administration to be as hostile to clean transportation and electric vehicles as it was in its first incarnation.

Last time we saw attacks on vehicle standards—egged on by automakers—when the EPA and Department of Transportation rolled back vehicle emissions and fuel economy requirements for passenger vehicles. We can expect similar, and likely more aggressive efforts, in a second Trump administration.

The Project 2025 playbook (page 426) indicates what these and other efforts to undermine the transition to clean transportation might look like, including restricting California’s ability to set global warming pollution standards and with it, other states’ ability to follow California. Why would this be in the Project 2025 plan? Because California has led the way in cleaning up vehicle pollution for more than six decades, pushing manufacturers to deploy cleaner combustion and zero-emission vehicles and enabling similar progress both nationwide and across the globe.

Clean transportation investments made during the past few years through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Laws may be less vulnerable to executive branch meddling. The investments are congressional acts that would need further congressional action to modify or change. Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Laws are also included in the Project 2025 priorities list (page 365), and the Trump administration could slow walk disbursement of remaining funds. 

Short of changing the law, federal departments like the Department of Energy and the Treasury are implementing several provisions related to these laws. Those provisions will be an area the new administration may look towards in pursuing its agenda. Threats to these programs could undermine the historic level of investments being made by private industry in domestic electric vehicle and battery manufacturing and the jobs they are creating, while at the same time making it harder for households to transition to electric vehicles.

The threats are not limited to the the electric vehicle transition underway across the country. Project 2025 also calls for eliminating federal support for public transit (page 636), which is a major source of funding for local transit operations and capital investments.

Amongst many other things, we also can expect to see dismantling of agencies like the EPA through reform efforts, including increasing the number of agency positions that are political appointees versus career staff, proposing restrictive agency budgets, dismantling climate-focused programs, and appointing political ideologues to lead agencies. All of these efforts will serve to undermine the ability of agencies to carry out their mission and may have long-lasting impacts as experts leave or are forced out of their jobs.

A path forward remains despite strong headwinds

The first Trump administration was no friend to clean air or transportation electrification efforts. But with hard work and coordinated efforts, states and advocates were able to blunt attacks and continue progress towards a transportation system that protects public health and limits the release of planet-warming emissions  

During the first Trump administration, UCS and our allies helped to oppose the most unqualified agency appointees, made clear the stakes of rolling back emission standards, held automakers accountable, and cut through the misinformation on clean cars and trucks from administration officials and automakers alike. A record number of congressmembers spoke out in favor of clean car standards.

The clean transportation movement even made some forward progress in those years. For example, California was successful in securing a voluntary agreement with several manufacturers to ensure that progress on clean cars would continue despite federal regulatory rollbacks and ensuing lawsuits; this demonstrated that even automakers understand that rolling back vehicle requirement is short-sighted and harmful to their business. Today, electric vehicle sales continue to grow and are poised to grow further as more models come to market and federal investments turn into more charging access across every state in the nation.

There are also opportunities for continuing the momentum toward a zero-emission transportation future, despite the expected headwinds. Many states are committed to clean air, contributing to climate solutions, and moving towards a future of zero-emission cars, trucks, and buses alongside abundant options like transit, walking, and biking. State leadership will be as important as ever in the coming years: states can compel manufacturers to bring clean vehicle products to market, support federal investments in infrastructure, and make investments that prioritize a more comprehensive set of transportation options. There even may be opportunities federally to advance common sense, bipartisan efforts related to electric vehicle battery recycling or clean fuels standards.   

What can we do next?

There’s no sugar coating it. The outlook for advancing federal support for electric vehicles and other clean transportation priorities during this administration is grim. But UCS knew a second Trump administration was a possibility, so we are prepared to defend the policies and investments that are building significant momentum in the transportation industry. We will push for electric vehicle sales to continue reaching record levels year over year, and advocate for the billions of dollars of US manufacturing and charging infrastructure investments already happening across the country.

Sustaining this momentum, defending existing policies, stopping bad federal outcomes, and holding automakers accountable to their clean vehicle commitments will be top priorities for UCS. We will support state efforts to fill in the gap in federal policy leadership over the next four years, and we will keep the spotlight on industry actors to ensure they are held accountable for their actions or inactions.  

In addition, demonstrating strong support for science-based policies across agencies and speaking up for scientists in federal service has never been more urgent. That’s why the Union of Concerned Scientists will launch a campaign on day one of the second Trump administration to protect the scientists in federal government who get up every day to keep us safe. We will relentlessly oppose anti-science nominees who prioritize the interests of polluters and special interests over the health and safety of people and communities, and we will defend the safeguards that protect the health and safety of people across the US, especially those overburdened by pollution.

We’ll need all of our advocates and supporters to be ready to speak up about climate and life-saving standards and slow down the rolling back of progress.

But just in case there was any doubt, UCS crunched the numbers to compare the different types of school buses from gasoline and diesel-powered option, to natural gas, electric and yes – even propane. 

Here’s why electric buses are hands down the best option:

EPA’s Clean School Bus Program paves the way to cleaner buses

In the early 2000s, UCS graded school bus fleets across the country, and found that many states were failing to invest in newer buses with more modern emission controls. Diesel school buses – which represent the majority of school buses –  were not only sending out toxic fumes from the tailpipe, but pollution was getting inside the buses, exposing children to unhealthy air. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)  Clean School Bus (CSB) Program was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to help communities reduce pollution from older, higher polluting school buses.

Despite past investments, thousands of older polluting school buses remain on the road. To supercharge the transition to clean school buses, Congress amended and reinvigorated the Clean School Bus Program with a $5 billion dollars over 5 years investment as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law). Funding released to date is supporting the replacement of about 8,500 buses in school districts all around the country.   

Electric buses are the most popular choice for clean school buses

The good news is that 92% of the recent program funding has gone to supporting electric zero emission school bus purchases and charging infrastructure investments. Why not 100 percent? The infrastructure law allows for some of the funds to be used for other types of buses including natural gas or propane-powered buses. While these options were once cleaner alternatives to their diesel counterparts, they are no longer the best choice.  Today, electric buses which completely eliminate tailpipe emissions, are a readily available option from school bus manufacturers.

By the numbers: electric school buses are the cleanest option

My colleague Dave Cooke recently undertook an analysis to get a clearer picture of how modern school bus options compare for their climate and public health impact. This analysis factors in the tailpipe emissions (“direct” emissions) for combustion engines like gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and propane, and also includes the upstream pollution from extracting (“feedstock” emissions) and refining these fuels (“fuel” emissions).

 Similarly, for electric school buses, the pollution from generating the electricity at the power plant (shown as “fuel” emissions) and the pollution associated with the extraction and processing of fuels used in the powerplants such as natural gas or coal (“feedstock” emissions) are included. The results of this “Wells to Wheels” analysis are shown below.

Over its lifetime, a gasoline, diesel, propane or natural gas school bus will be responsible for more than 400 metric tons of global warming pollution. An electric school bus on the other hand drastically reduces climate pollution by well over 80 percent. As the electricity grid continues to evolve with more solar and wind power displacing coal and natural gas, an EV school bus purchased today will get even cleaner over its lifetime. 

But lower climate emissions aren’t the only benefit. Reductions in pollutants including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and others, help to clean the air  – not just for children riding the bus, but everyone in the communities where these buses travel, as well as near the refineries where fuels are produced.

To compare air quality impact of different school bus types, the tailpipe and upstream pollution over the lifetime of operating a school was converted to a monetary value of the associated health impacts. School buses that contribute fewer air pollutants over their lifetime mean less exposure to dirty air, reduced risk of disease and hospital visits, and lower overall health costs associated with bus pollution. The figure below shows the results.

Note: A low and high health cost estimate are shown for each fuel type.

Once again, the results are clear. Electric school buses are the best choice for reducing emissions that pollute our air and harm our health. On average, an electric school bus is at least 50 percent cleaner than even the cleanest combustion alternatives, even when accounting for air pollution related to producing electricity.

Propane: best for the BBQ, not for school buses

While the vast majority of Clean School Bus Program grants and rebates are for electric buses, propane buses are eligible for, and have received some CSB Program funding. So, it’s worth looking more closely at how these two types of buses compare, especially as applicants pursue future funding opportunities, EPA makes additional awards, and Congress considers what is next for this program.     

In the charts above, it’s clear that electric school buses are cleaner than propane based on the average mix of electricity sources (coal, solar, wind, hydro, natural gas, etc.) in the US. But the sources of electricity generation are different in different parts of the country. Some regions are more reliant on coal or natural gas, while others have higher production of renewable electricity like wind and solar.  

So how do electric and propane school buses compare where you live? The following maps show that electric school buses are cleaner than propane school buses no matter if you live in Boise or Boston. The blue map shows the percent reduction in lifetime climate pollution of electric buses compared to propane while the green map shows the reduction in lifetime air pollution-related health costs.  In both cases, the zero tailpipe emissions of electric buses and the declining emissions from our electricity grid show that going electric is the best choice. 

Note: Percentages represent the reduction in greenhouse gases and public health impact of an electric school bus compared to equivalent propane school bus. Public health related data for AK and HI were unavailable.

With about 500,000 school buses taking our children to and from school nationwide, we still have a ways to go to transition away from combustion technologies like diesel toward electric school buses. But the Clean School Bus Program is already helping deploy thousands of electric buses in school districts across the country  – reducing pollution and cleaning the air for our kids and our communities. 

Download the methodology detailing the assumptions and methods for estimating the climate and public health impacts. 

Climate

Transportation is the largest source of climate emissions in the US (29 percent) and passenger cars and trucks account for the majority of this pollution. These new rules represent the largest climate regulatory action ever adopted by EPA and are expected to reduce more than seven billion tons of climate emissions. That’s the equivalent of four years’ worth of climate pollution from today’s entire US transportation sector. 

The new standards apply to both light duty passenger cars and trucks as well as medium-duty vehicles (which include larger pick-ups like the Ford F-250 and vans between 8,501 to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight). By 2032, new light-duty vehicle climate emissions would decrease by nearly 50 percent (to 85 grams/mile) compared to existing standards that go through 2026. Medium-duty vehicle climate emissions would drop about 44 percent (to 274 grams/mile).

Air quality and public health

But climate pollution isn’t the only thing coming out of tailpipes that’s harming us, and the impact of these tailpipe emissions isn’t equally shared. These new standards take another leap forward in reducing the toxic pollution from burning gasoline in our vehicles. For example, by 2031, new gasoline passenger vehicles will be required to cut particulate matter (PM)emissions by more than 80 percent most likely resulting in the use of gasoline particulate filters which can remove even the smallest ultrafine particles that are most harmful to breathe. This is a common sense step that relies on affordable, proven technology already in use in millions of gasoline vehicles outside the US.

The overall combination of reductions in particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and other air pollutants are expected to deliver $13 billion in annual health benefits.

Encouraging EVs

EPA has set standards before, so what’s different this time? This is arguably the first time that the availability of plug-in electric vehicles has factored so significantly into the setting of US vehicle standards. Even so, the new rules encourage EV deployment but are technology neutral and don’t actually require automakers to sell them. EPA stuck to their tradition of setting performance-based standards—essentially setting an emissions target, or limit, on how much pollution on average is allowed from the new vehicles manufacturers sell (set as grams of pollution/mile). The lower the average, the more changes manufacturers need to make–either by improving their gasoline and diesel vehicles, or by increasing sales of lower emission technology like plug-in hybrid or battery electric vehicles.  

The flexibility in the standards means that we don’t know for certain how many EVs manufacturers will make. If manufacturers comply with the standards as EPA estimates they might, we could see battery electric EVs make up as much as 30 to 56 percent of light-duty sales between 2030 and 2032. That’s good, but there’s no guarantee and it also leaves us quite a ways to go to get on track to 100 percent sales by 2035 which UCS estimates is needed to be on track to zeroing out climate emissions by mid-century. 

Figure 1 More Work To Do: If automakers comply with the standards as EPA estimates they might [EPA (lowest -cost scenario)], plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles (included in zero-tailpipe emission vehicles) could make up more than 50 percent of new vehicle sales by 2032. UCS analysis [UCS (zero-CO2 2050 scenario]  illustrates the importance of exceeding this target and continuing quickly toward 100 percent market share of zero-emission vehicles by 2035 to be on track to zeroing out climate emissions by 2050. Note: EPA modeling showing an increase in gasoline sales after 2032 coincides with the phase out of the Inflation Reduction Act EV incentives

What does this mean for consumers?

One thing to keep in mind. These standards do not rely on rocket science. Far from it. They rely on using technology already that is already in use today—just using it on more vehicle models.  

From a consumer perspective, the vehicles at the dealership in 2027 and beyond will in many ways be “more of the same.” The “more” being: more fuel efficient gasoline options, more hybrids, more plug-in hybrids and more EVs. In other words, more options to choose from that are also cleaner and that have lower operating costs. EPA estimates that on average, consumers will save an average of $6,000 over the life of a model 2032 vehicle even after accounting for the higher technology costs.

What’s the impact on the auto industry?

There’s been a lot of attention (and misinformation) about EVs and what these rules will and won’t do. It’s important to remember that even without these rules, the market for EVs is expected to grow substantially with estimates ranging around 30 percent to more than 50 percent sales by 2030. The global trend toward electric transportation is accelerating and it’s happening in the US too—with EV sales reaching record highs again last year and progress happening in every state (See our state-specific EV factsheets). US automakers—which are also global automakers—risk being left behind if they don’t continue their investment in and deployment of EVs.

While the industry momentum is already toward electrification, these standards are important to help create more certainty for automakers, charging providers, and utilities and ensures a robust and growing domestic EV manufacturing industry—which in turn supports a strong future for US autoworkers. 

Climate risks: flexibilities and loopholes mean uncertainty

But as UCS pointed out, the rules could and should have gone farther given the technology available today to improve gasoline vehicles and the massive private, public and global investment in an electric transportation future that is well underway.

The new EPA rules, in addition to setting a fleet average standard, also included additional flexibilities that mean significant uncertainty about the level of EV deployment we will actually see and the overall emissions benefits of the program.

UCS strongly advocated for a final rule that leveraged the availability of EVs and cleaner gasoline technology to get earlier overall reductions AND end up with more certainty in getting on track to 100 percent by 2035. The final rule ultimately relaxed the emissions targets in the earlier years of the program and lowered expectations for EV deployment while discounting the improvements available to gasoline vehicles. As a result, the emissions benefits are significantly smaller than they could have been under a more ambitious final rule.

On paper, EPA finalized a rule similar to Alternative 3, which my colleague Dave Cooke examined in a previous blog post. However, the agency extended a number of loopholes which they had proposed to eliminate, without adjusting the stringency of the rule, leading to even further reductions in the benefits of the rule. These loopholes are nothing new, and many we have argued against in not just this but prior rulemakings. For example, EPA continued the off-cycle credit program through at least 2032, something which we have long known over credits certain technologies well beyond their real-world reductions. Additionally, despite a wealth of data showing that plug-in hybrids drive on gasoline rather than electricity far more frequently than currently credited (particularly today’s plug-in hybrids), EPA has chosen not to take any corrective action until 2031.

The largest source of credits is for the use of alternative air-conditioning refrigerants with a lower greenhouse gas potential. This technology has been deployed by automakers in nearly the entire vehicle fleet over the past decade. However, because EPA did not adjust its final standard to reflect this technology, these credits serve as a massive windfall for manufacturers, particularly in the earliest years of the final rule.

Not only do these loopholes mean fewer emissions benefits than anticipated (our initial assessment is they could add up to a 15 percent reduction in emissions benefits), but because they are all weighted towards the earliest years of the program, they reduce the nearer term push towards an electric future which is especially important in states that have not adopted their own zero emission vehicle requirements.

Where do we go from here?

These federal standards are important—they set the direction for the nation’s auto industry,  ensure we are making progress in reducing pollution, and hold automakers accountable for their products and the impact they have.  

But as a country and a planet, we are at a critical point in the climate crisis and need to accelerate our ambition. UCS demonstrated to regulators that the technology is available to go farther and faster to reduce climate emissions from new vehicles and we need to do everything we can to make that a reality.  States will continue to have an important role to play in supporting vehicle electrification as well as investing in transit and transportation infrastructure to support cleaner mobility choices, including walking and biking.    

The good news is that momentum is building around the globe for cleaner vehicles and in the US the investments and tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will continue to support the robust roll out of EVs, domestic manufacturing, and charging infrastructure in the coming years. There’s no guarantee that EV deployment will exceed expectations. But on-going investments and continued momentum should help ensure that EVs are a compelling compliance strategy for automakers. And EVs will become increasingly attractive to more and more drivers because they are cleaner, can be charged at home, and are cheaper to fuel and maintain than the gasoline vehicles of the past. 

Federal vehicle standards are one piece of the puzzle, and it’s good news that Biden administration has taken definitive step towards a cleaner transportation future. But of course there is much more to do.  We need to use every policy tool available to reduce the dangers of climate change and build the transportation system of the future—which yes, means more EVs, but also means a more balanced system that is safer, healthier, and connects communities with cleaner, more accessible ways to move around.

Americans are interested in EVs, and they are buying them!!!

2023 was a milestone year for electric car sales in the US. For the first time ever, annual sales surpassed one million vehicles, accounting for more than seven percent of new vehicles sold. That is A LOT of EVs and A LOT less oil use, air pollution and climate emissions. In December alone, sales hit a new monthly high approaching 12 percent nationally (see figure).

In California, nearly half a million EVs were purchased in 2023 reaching a whopping one in four new vehicles.

The top selling passenger car AND top selling light truck in CA in 2023, according to California New Car Dealers Association, were both electric vehicles with the Tesla Model 3 and the Tesla Model Y taking the top spots…as they also did in 2022.

We are witnessing something the auto industry has never seen in its 100+ year history. A proven, viable alternative to the internal combustion engine has arrived—and millions of drivers are already using these vehicles every day across America.

Despite all these major milestones, there’s been a lot of focus lately on signs the recent rapid growth in EV sales may be slowing. California, where the market is more mature, saw annual EV sales increase 29% year over year, but fourth quarter year-over-year sales grew only about 8% (Veloz). Some manufacturers have had to readjust their overly optimistic EV sales targets and layoffs at some manufacturers (Rivian for one) has added to the gloomy news. But it shouldn’t be surprising that the transition to electric vehicles might not be a straight line up, up and up. Even in California, the sales of EVs over the last 10 years have ebbed and flowed, slowing for a while and then ramping up again as new, more capable and better priced models become available and charging infrastructure has been built out. In 2021 and 2022, if you wanted to buy an EV you might be on a waiting list for many months or even years which in turn drove aggressive projections by automakers for future years sales. Manufacturers have always had to make adjustments when overly rosy projections about their next amazing product are undermined by their competition, which isn’t standing still, or broader market forces (like higher interest rates) and the cyclical nature of the auto industry.)

EV charging infrastructure is about to get super charged

Three BIG things are happening in the charging space that are going to super charge EVs: (1) agreement on a charging standard, (2) Tesla opening up its supercharger network, and (3) billions of private and public investment which is just starting to deliver more chargers.

In every survey I’ve seen over the past decade, access to charging has always been at or near the top of the list of potential EV buyers’ concerns. The vast majority of time, charging happens at home.  But when you buy a car, you want to be able to drive it wherever you need to go, so a widespread public charging network is important. 

Tesla made charging infrastructure a priority and it has paid dividends for them. If you want a reliable, extensive and easy to use network of fast chargers, Tesla has been the only game in town. But to use it, you had to buy a Tesla. If you didn’t buy a Tesla, you had to choose  between two different charging standards and hope you picked right one. Finally, the VHS vs BETA Max moment for EV charging in the US has arrived. And the winner is (Tesla’s) North American Charging Standard.

This is a game changer, the benefits of which will play out over the next few years, as manufacturers make their cars compatible with a single standard AND the Tesla network of chargers is opened up to other manufacturer’s vehicles—which started with Ford this month with others soon to follow.  

In addition to moving beyond the uncertainty of charging standards that has weighed on the market for years, there is a huge amount of investment happening to build out a more reliable, and extensive public charging network. 

The bipartisan infrastructure law provided up to $7.5 billion in investments to support the buildout of a nationwide charging network through the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program and the National EV Infrastructure (NEVI) program. This federal investment is building upon billions of private investments as well. Billions of dollars have been invested as a result of the VW settlement in 2015 which established Electrify America. Many other automakers are investing in charging as well. Rivian is building out a network of chargers  and announced plans to open it up to other vehicles, seven automakers announced a partnership with EVGo  last summer to build out 30,000 fast chargers,  Volvo is partnering with Starbucks to build chargers at that popular beverage chain, and even Walmart is getting in on it, just to name a few.

Many of these announced investments are just starting to result in available chargers. The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation for example just recently announced the first charging stations being opened under the NEVI program. Tens of thousands of more chargers will be deployed in the coming years supported by this program alongside additional state investments, utility investments, and private investment.

There are still some speed bumps in the road; charging reliability remains a concern, and efforts to ensure charging accessibility in lower income communities and in multiunit dwellings must continue. But there is strong momentum moving in the right direction to support the growing market for EVs.   

Increasing EV options, easier access to incentives will spur more buyers to make the switch

Yes—there are a lot of EV models out there. But in practical terms, options are still pretty limited and it shows up in the sales data. Tesla dominates the U.S. market with only 2 models—the Model 3 and Model Y—making up more than 40% of all EV sales in 2023, and all of Tesla’s vehicles claiming 45% market share (inclusive of PHEVs).  This is not a sign of a mature, competitive market. But that has already started showed signs of changing. Tesla market share used to be even higher (60% in 2020 vs 45% in 2023), and they’ve been trying to maintain it with lower pricing—to the benefit of prospective buyers but the chagrin of competing manufacturers and Hertz (declining prices on new Teslas was a key factor for downsizing their EV fleet).  With growing confidence in access to charging and new models on the horizon (for those buyers looking for seven seaters for example, the Kia EV9 was recently released and the VW Buzz and Volvo EX90 are on the horizon), consumers will have more viable options that go beyond the current crop of 250+ mile range 5-seat SUVs that currently represent the bulk of EV models available.    

The other BIG game changer is the recent change to the federal incentive for EVs. In the past, buyers could either access up to a $7500 credit only after filing their taxes or indirectly by leasing an EV (where the dealers nominally would pass on the credit through a lower lease price). That all changed starting in January. EV buyers who meet income limits can now access the credit right at the dealership, immediately knocking  off up to $7,500. As of early February 11,000 dealers had already signed up for this program and reported 25,000 vehicle sales including both new EV purchases as well as used EV sales—which are now eligible for up to a $4,000 credit.

Requirements for vehicles and batteries to be manufactured or assembled  in the US, as well as for mineral sourcing, are currently limiting the vehicle models which can get the full amount of credits which is likely cutting into potential sales (List of eligible vehicles).   But as manufacturers invest in their domestic supply chains, more vehicles will be eligible for the credit (and more US jobs will be created to boot.)

Innovation doesn’t stop

EVs today are not the same as the ones from a decade ago, and the ones ten years from now won’t be the same as today. They will be better. They will be less impacted by extreme cold (already something that is manageable). They will have longer ranges or greater towing capacity for those drivers that really need it. They will come in more shapes and sizes. They will charge faster. And they will be even more cost competitive with their internal combustion vehicle counterparts.  

I don’t feel like I’m sticking my neck out here. Just look at the past 10+ years. In January 2012, at a hearing of the California Air Resources Board I attended, the board considered updates to the Zero Emission Vehicle standards through model year 2025. There was robust debate about the feasibility of EVs reaching 15 percent market share in CA by 2025. The market at the time (all of 6,743 California sales in 2011) was dominated by the 73-mile range Nissan Leaf, the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt (with a 35-mile electric range).  Automakers pushed back, concerned the rules were too stringent. CARB mostly stuck to their guns, but provided lots of flexibility for how the standards could be met. Today, sales in California not only far exceed these targets, but ahead of schedule, because regulators in part underestimated how fast technology would improve. ).

If there’s one thing that’s been tough for regulators to predict in setting industry-wide vehicle standards, it’s  the pace and extent of innovation. But one thing is absolutely certain, innovation will continue and it goes a faster when there are binding standards that require industry-wide investment.

Innovation is hard to predict, auto industry behavior is not.

Automakers love to talk about innovation—heck, they’ve even formed the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. But when push comes to shove, bullish statements on transitioning to EVs and commitments to reducing emissions don’t translate to support for strong industry-wide vehicle standards —standards that have proven critical in the past to move the whole industry forward. 

The history of industry resistance is well documented in UCS’s Time for a U-Turn report. The latest stance by the industry—with respect to emissions standards—is a repeat of the can’t do attitude they turned to for decades when fighting fuel economy standards, then claiming the technology didn’t exist, it was too expensive, and consumers didn’t want it (they were wrong). Now the auto industry is dragging its feet once again, this time trying to use China’s progress on EVs as an excuse to slow down on U.S. standards. Really? When you’re falling behind, is slowing down really the right answer?

Luckily, Congress didn’t think so when it passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Congress understood that we need to ensure that the next generation of vehicle technology is made domestically to be competitive globally. By making historic investments in the U.S. auto industry, supporting EV infrastructure, domestic manufacturing and supply chain development, battery recycling efforts, manufacturing incentives, and consumer incentives, we support a just transition to zero emissions transportation, and move beyond the fossilized fossil fuel stance automakers are clinging to.

Federal vehicle standards are needed to keep us on track

We’re likely to see the next round of vehicle standards finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the coming weeks. This latest round builds on decades of federal and state vehicle performance standards that have eliminated billions of tons of pollution from the air we breathe, saved consumers trillions (no joke) at the gas pump, and helped to keep climate changing  emissions in-check. The stakes frankly have never been higher. We have little more than 25 years to meet critical “mid-century” emissions targets to get climate change under control.  The vehicle rules would be in effect through model year 2032  – many of the vehicles built in that year will likely still be on the road in 2050 when global climate emissions need to be near zero to avoid dangerous warming. The rules set declining average pollution levels which help ensure automakers deliver cleaner cars in the form of lower emission gasoline vehicles and zero-tailpipe emission electric vehicles. 

Now it’s time for the EPA to set the north star for the auto industry for the next decade to keep us on track. On track toward a strong, globally competitive auto sector in the US that supports good jobs. On track to delivering more clean, affordable options for consumers. And on track toward zeroing out pollution from our cars and trucks.  

When a change as big as this is underway, it’s important to understand what impact it can have on employment and to take steps to ensure that workers benefit from the transition and aren’t left behind.

But what is the outlook for jobs in an electric transportation future? Can the EV transition support good, family- and community-supporting jobs and support a strong US economy?  The fundamentals show there’s reason to be optimistic.

Building EVs requires workers too

This might not be obvious from the headlines or from talking points of some auto CEOs or politicians, but recent research efforts to understand how many workers it takes to build an EV have found that building an EV today requires similar, if not more, labor hours than building a conventional gasoline vehicle.  

A recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) examined the labor requirements for manufacturing and assembling EV powertrain components, including the battery, compared to conventional gasoline vehicle powertrains. (More detailed coverage of the study can be found here). The researchers examined the actual manufacturing process and labor requirements, rather than generating estimates based off the number of parts in an EV (EVs have fewer parts than a gasoline vehicle).

Their conclusion:

The results “support the proposition that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] contain additional manufacturing content embedded in the batteries and electronic components that requires comparable levels of labor as ICEVs [internal combustion engine vehicles]”.

In other words, EVs don’t just make themselves, they require just as many workers as gasoline vehicles.

The CMU findings are not an outlier. Their results are supported by a separate study by FEV Consulting, commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), comparing the labor hours required to build the Volkswagen (VW) ID.4 electric vehicle and the VW Tiguan gasoline vehicle. The detailed analysis by FEV estimated that the EV powertrain for the VW ID.4 would take about 11 hours more labor to produce than the comparable Tiguan gasoline drivetrain.

Conclusion: building EVs can support a similar number of jobs as conventional gasoline vehicles.

Importance of ensuring quality jobs

Just because building EVs takes similar amounts of labor, doesn’t guarantee that those jobs will be good jobs. Nor does it mean existing auto workers will be treated fairly as the industry evolves and factories retool or relocate. 

The current negotiation between the UAW (the union that represents autoworkers) and the Big Three (GM, Ford and Stellantis) is about the ongoing erosion of job quality in the auto sector. UAW workers have said they are fighting for better pay, benefits, and job security at a time when automakers have been making record profits and CEO pay has soared. But they have also cited the transition to EVs and the need to protect and support workers as factories adjust and new battery plants come online. There’s no reason that EV jobs can’t be stable, well-paying union jobs.

That’s why the battery plant workers being covered by the UAW contract is one of the issues that is part of the union negotiations. Some auto manufacturers are joining forces with battery technology companies in joint ventures to build new domestic battery manufacturing facilities. UAW wants to ensure these new facilities fall under UAW’s contract with the automakers and there are signs some progress is being made. UAW’s current contract negotiation is one clear and present opportunity for the industry to support a high standard for jobs in a modern auto manufacturing sector and in the clean economy more broadly.  

On-shoring of the EV supply chain is a job growth opportunity

The good news from the studies noted above is that fundamentally, building EVs can sustain jobs in the automotive sector now and well into the future. We’re already seeing evidence of the job creation potential of EV investments with billions of dollars in announcements related to EV manufacturing, battery production, and battery recycling investment. (This handy tool tracks EV-related job announcements). But to take full advantage, we need to continue to bolster US EV battery production, manufacturing, and recycling, much of which currently is occurring outside the US. 

Policies in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are providing the shot in the arm the US needs to ramp up a domestic EV supply chain. For example, the BIL is providing billions of dollars to support the buildout of a public charging network to support EV adoption in the US, while the IRA has tax credits aimed at consumers to help support demand as automakers transition toward EVs. The most valuable tax credits are available to companies that manufacture vehicles and batteries in the US. These policies help automakers sell EVs, lower their investment risk, and drive domestic investment as the global transition to EVs is underway. The IRA has already helped catalyze billions of dollars in announced investments, including in U.S. battery production, from joint ventures between automakers and battery manufacturers to on-shoring of vehicle model production. 

Not only is this important for creating jobs in the U.S. but making sure the US auto industry is well-positioned to be a leader in the global move to EVs over the next decade. Investments in the BIL and IRA are also an opportunity to support high labor standards and good jobs—which is why we joined with others in calling for EPA to establish a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Labor to support pathways for high-quality jobs in the green economy, a step the agencies took in July.  

EVs are good for the economy, let’s make sure they are good for workers too

Overall, evidence points to positive economic benefits from a transition to electric transportation. The prices of EVs are dropping and are expected to match or beat up front costs of gasoline vehicles in the coming years. Savings from lower maintenance costs and the lower cost of charging a vehicle compared to a gasoline fill-up mean more money in consumers’ pockets. A report released by the Goldman School of Public Policy found on net, national employment could increase by more than 2 million jobs by 2035 with the rapid adoption of EV cars and trucks. Not to mention the benefits of cleaner air and lower climate emissions. 

But not all sectors will experience job growth. As more and more EVs get on the road, new employment opportunities will continue to evolve and grow—like those associated with building out charging infrastructure for example. And in other sectors, like those in the petroleum and fossil fuel industry, the number of jobs will decline. Recent closures of refineries demonstrate how things can go wrong (as with one refinery in Philadelphia) and can also help inform how best to support workers going forward (as illustrated by a report from UC Irvine of a refinery closure in CA). Managing this transition is important and must be planned for in order to protect the communities and workers most impacted. One recent step forward on this is California’s recent commitment to develop a petroleum phase-out plan.    

The EV transition is happening fast, and autoworkers are some of the first to grapple with the clean energy transition. Given the importance of this work for the future of our planet, it is essential the workers who will build these vehicles and their necessary components are fairly compensated. Thanks to investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, there are more resources available to help The Big Three domestically produce these vehicles, without shortchanging workers. Anyone who is serious about a fair transition to a clean economy knows that it’s not just about creating new jobs in EV manufacturing, but about making sure that these jobs are high-quality jobs, with community-sustaining wages and benefits where workers have the free and fair choice to join a union.

That’s why UCS stands in solidarity with UAW. We believe setting a high standard for jobs in a modern auto manufacturing sector is a critical piece of achieving a just, clean energy economy.

Even in California, the leading EV market in the U.S., electric ride-hailing is less than 1% of ride-hailing miles, and is well behind the market as a whole. This is likely because drivers face barriers to buying or leasing EVs, charging infrastructure constraints can limit the attractiveness of switching to electric vehicles, and until relatively recently, there were few vehicle options with long enough range to be attractive for drivers. Charging and vehicle options are becoming more available. However, ride-hailing companies have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition and helping make EVs an attractive and affordable option for their drivers, without placing additional financial risks or burdens on individual drivers.

As we think through what a transition looks like to electric ride-hailing, the other important thing to keep in mind is that there are several different types of drivers, and the solutions don’t need to be one-size-fits-all. Not every driver is going to be a perfect candidate for an electric vehicle in the near term, and different types of approaches are likely needed to address different situations. Some may be eager to buy an EV if the economics and logistical barriers can be addressed, while others may be interested to try one on a short-term lease. Others may just drive on a ride-hailing platform occasionally and find that a hybrid suits their needs at present.

I’m often asked, “How can ride-hailing companies electrify when the companies don’t own the vehicles?” Here are a few strategies, some of which ride-hailing companies are currently exploring, that if scaled up, can help accelerate electrification.

1. Subsidize vehicle leases and charging

It appears more and more ride-hailing drivers are opting to lease vehicles to drive for these companies rather than buy a new vehicle or use their current vehicle. This is mostly anecdotal based on conversations with drivers and the growing options to lease vehicles through services like Maven Gig, Lyft Express Drive, and others. Uber and Lyft need drivers with cars to make their business run, and not everyone who wants to drive has a vehicle that qualifies, or a vehicle that they want to use for ride-hailing. Leasing programs aim to fill the gap by providing an easy way to get access to a car for drivers. These programs typically allow drivers to lease over short time periods of days, weeks, or months as opposed to years like a traditional vehicle lease.

Leveraging these leasing programs to make EVs accessible to drivers is one strategy that Lyft and Maven Gig have been exploring. For example, Lyft announced in Fall 2019 a program in Denver to provide 200 Kia Niro for short term leases through its Express Drive program and is partnering with Electrify America to provide charging, which is included in the lease price. Maven Gig has made the Chevy Bolt available in several markets as well and also includes charging with EVgo.

An important component of these leasing programs is ensuring that drivers, who may only be leasing the vehicles for a short time, have access to reasonably priced public fast charging.  This is where partnerships with charging companies become critically important. Including fast charging costs in the lease price is one model that helps assure drivers they will have predictable or fixed fueling costs. And it also helps increase utilization of existing charging assets which can be beneficial to charging companies.

Maven Gig offers the Chevy Bolt for lease with charging included though the crossover SUV is the lowest priced option. Providing estimated weekly costs, including fuel costs, would be a bit more helpful in illustrating the benefits of choosing the EV. Source: Screen shot from www.mavengig.maven.com taken on February 5, 2020.

EV lease and charging programs like these appear to be one effective way to encourage a segment of drivers to use an EV in ride-hailing. Learning from these current programs and scaling them up could be an effective near-term strategy for accelerating electric ride-hailing miles. The scale-up needs to be coordinated, however, as charging infrastructure availability needs to grow as more EVs are leased in a market. Ride-hailing companies can play a leadership role here in working with charging providers to build out fast-charging networks that support ride-hailing.

2. Provide direct incentives to drivers

Another approach is to provide a direct incentive to drivers who use an EV on the ride-hailing platform through a per trip or per mile bonus.  This could broadly help encourage more EVs in ride-hailing and could encourage drivers who are considering buying a new or used vehicle to choose an EV.  This approach doesn’t directly address upfront cost barriers to acquiring an EV or provide access to charging, so may be best suited to those drivers who have access to some combination of home and public charging. Providing some certainty or guarantee that these incentives will stay in place for an extended period of time is likely necessary for them to affect driver vehicle choices, however, as vehicle purchases require a more significant investment and are longer term than a weekly or monthly vehicle lease.

Uber announced an incentive of up to $20/week in EV ride-hailing credits in some U.S. markets with their EV Champions Initiative, along with education and outreach efforts. It is unclear how this program is performing, or if the relatively minimal incentive offered is sufficient to motivate drivers to switch to EVs or if it is mainly supporting drivers who would have brought an EV on to the platform regardless of the incentive. Learnings from this effort could inform future programs.

Alternatively, companies could also directly incentivize vehicle purchases or charging infrastructure. In London, Uber is demonstrating another approach where they have committed to electrify their entire fleet of vehicles by 2025. A £0.15 per mile fee (about 20 cents) on all trips is being used to provide funding to support drivers’ EV purchases and operation.  This company commitment and subsequent fee was driven by clean air policies by the City of London. So far the fee has raised a total of £80 million. Similar programs could be established in the U.S. market to support EV adoption by drivers or to facilitate home-charger installations.

3. Driver education and outreach

A survey of drivers in Seattle by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency found that, not unlike most Americans, “most drivers are aware of electric vehicles, but are not familiar with how they work or their benefit to ride-hailing services.” Increasing the awareness of ride-hailing drivers about electric vehicles, vehicle models available, and state, federal, and local incentives for vehicles or chargers is a role ride-hailing companies can play. There are also drivers today using their electric vehicles in ride-hailing who can offer their own insights and share their experiences with other drivers. Ride-hailing companies can clearly communicate with drivers the companies’ commitment to electrification and provide the information needed by drivers to understand the cost and benefits of driving an EV in ride-hailing. The Rocky Mountain Institute illustrated a while back that providing this information is an important step to raise awareness among current and potential ride-hailing drivers.

There are examples of education efforts like this happening, like one effort led by Forth, as part of the EV Shared Mobility Project, and supported by ride-hailing companies. Efforts like these could be scaled up, made more widespread, and improved upon as best practices are better understood. Increased partnerships with utilities may also be an effective approach for ensuring drivers have the information necessary to make decisions about home charging and to navigate utility incentive programs that may exist. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as they become more widely available, are also another opportunity for future ride-hailing electrification efforts and would require similar outreach and education efforts.

4. Tapping consumer demand for EVs

Another option Lyft is exploring in some markets is allowing riders to request a “Green” ride.  “Green Mode” allows riders to request an EV or hybrid for their trip in cities like Seattle.  This type of request feature could help leverage consumer demand to benefit drivers who use an electric vehicle. However, there are some potential challenges with this feature, particularly if there are only a small number of vehicles available in a given market. Longer distances driven between rides (and longer wait times for riders) could result as there are fewer drivers to match with riders. Learning from early deployment of these features could help inform how best to implement them to maximize emission benefits and ensure they are providing benefits to EV drivers and encouraging EV adoption.

5. Buy EVs or invest directly in DC fast charging

Owning vehicles and charging infrastructure isn’t part of Uber or Lyft’s current business model, but it doesn’t mean that will remain the case. There could be opportunities for the companies to invest directly in charging infrastructure and electric vehicles.  Automated vehicles may be a catalyst for a shift in this direction. For example, Lyft made a commitment to provide 1 billion self-driving electric rides by 2025. While wide-spread deployment of self-driving technology is still yet to materialize, ride-hailing companies are continuing to look at the technology as a means to lower operating costs. Uber and Lyft will likely need to take a different approach with self-driving cars compared to the current practice of relying on drivers to bring their own vehicles to the platform. They may own fleets of self-driving vehicles or perhaps partner with companies operating self-driving car fleets to run on the Lyft or Uber platforms. In either case, introducing self-driving cars into ride-hailing is an important opportunity for expanding ride-hailing electrification – whenever the self-driving car revolution arrives.

6. Innovate

New mobility companies like Uber and Lyft are continuing to evolve and innovate, adding new app features, getting creative with rider incentives, and developing various driver-focused strategies to attract and retain drivers.  Some of the examples noted above demonstrate that these companies can develop innovative strategies to solve the challenge of electrifying ride-hailing vehicles.  Making electrification a clear corporate priority, and committing the resources to it, will inevitably lead to new ideas and strategies being developed to tackle the increased pollution from ride-hailing trips that we see today.  The last 10 years of ride-hailing has seen tremendous innovation and there is no reason to think the next 10 years won’t bring similar changes to this fast-growing industry.

What do you think? Do you have ideas on what other steps ride-hailing companies could take to accelerate electrification?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Ride-hailing companies have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition to EVs

Company actions are going to be critical to address climate pollution from transportation, and ride-hailing companies need to step up.  Both Uber and Lyft have made stated commitments to support EVs in ride-hailing and taken some important steps exploring different strategies. The next step is for ride-hailing companies to ramp up these efforts so that they can make real impact on the growing emissions from ride-hailing trips.

Policy makers have an important role to play as well. So in my next blog post, I’ll look at some of the ways policy makers can support a transition to electrification of ride-hailing and ensure ride-hailing is on track to be a low carbon transportation solution.

In this post, I’ll look more closely at what’s happening in the EV market and the economics of electric ride-hailing between now and 2030 to provide some insights. Bottomline: electrification of ride-hailing could start in earnest now at a relatively low cost, particularly if the cost is spread across all rides.  And by 2030, electrification could pay off big time for companies and drivers as the overall cost of ownership of EVs drops compared to gasoline vehicles, even when drivers must rely significantly on more costly DC fast charging.

Overall economics favors wide-spread electrification by 2030

There are three significant changes coming to the market in the next decade that will make the economics of electric car ownership or leasing better for drivers: (1) EV upfront costs are dropping; (2) total cost of ownership is becoming competitive even with hybrids; and (3) on the charging front, deployment of  DC fast charging infrastructure is growing and could accelerate with ride-hailing electrification.

 Buying an electric vehicle will cost about the same or less than a gasoline vehicle.

Battery prices are continuing to drop and the upfront cost for new 200-mile range EVs (blue line in the figure below) is estimated to become cost competitive with new gasoline vehicles (black line) on straight upfront costs in the 2025 timeframe with 250-mile range EVs not far behind.  This will be a critical point in the EV market overall as consumers start to see prices in the dealership similar to conventional gasoline vehicles.

There is of course uncertainty in how quickly these cost declines will occur, but steadily declining battery prices have continued as more automakers and battery suppliers have ramped up production and manufacturing has matured.  And manufacturers themselves are indicating this trend is making a difference. As Mark Reuss from GM put it recently, “Our next-generation EVs will be profitable from day one.”

 



By the middle of this decade, electric vehicle prices are expected to match or beat similar conventional gasoline vehicles on upfront vehicle price. BEV250 = battery electric vehicle with 250-mile range. Source: International Council on Clean Transportation

 

Uber and Lyft drivers’ total cost of ownership will be similar or lower than gasoline costs

By looking at the difference in cost between a ride-hailing trip in an EV and a gasoline hybrid vehicle and how that is expected to change over the next several years, we can get a sense of how much a transition to EVs might cost. Fortunately, researchers at the International Council on Clean Transportation have taken a close look at this question.

In a 2019 paper, they examined the policy question “if you were going to implement a fee on ride-hailing trips and provide a discount for EV rides, how big would the discount need to be to zero out the cost difference between a hybrid trip and an EV trip?” Their analysis shows how the per mile cost of using an EV for ride-hailing compares to conventional gasoline and hybrid vehicles when you factor in vehicle price, fuel costs, the time spent charging, and more. While this analysis doesn’t examine the specific costs of any particular implementation strategy by ride-hailing companies, it is helpful in understanding the overall economics of electric ride-hailing and the potential magnitude of the cost for transitioning ride-hailing to EVs.

Here’s what they found:

Today, for a 250-mile range battery electric vehicle charged at home (but with no federal tax credit or state incentives), the difference in cost between a hybrid and an EV ride-hailing trip would be less than 20 cents (assuming an average trip length of 5.2 miles). This is shown in the leftmost circle in the figure below.

On the other extreme, an EV trip relying solely on higher cost DC fast charging 100 percent of the time would require a $1.12 per trip discount compared to the hybrid vehicle to make the EV cost competitive. See the right-most circle in the figure below. DC fast charging is more expensive than home charging due to the higher power needed to deliver faster charging rates.

While a cost differential of more than $1 per trip isn’t insignificant, we aren’t going to make a transition to 100 percent EVs in the ride-hailing fleet overnight. A transition will occur over several years while EV economics are continuing to improve. Consider a hypothetical case where Uber and Lyft had to have 10 percent of their rides be electric and drivers relied only on DC fast charging. In that scenario Uber and Lyft could charge an 11 cent fee on all rides and provide $1.12 per ride to EV drivers to cover their added costs. Or they might take a different approach. In London, for example, Uber has implemented a $0.20/mile (£0.15) on all rides, which will be used to help London drivers buy and operate EVs, indicating another perspective on potential costs.

 



The figure above illustrates the per trip cost difference of operating a 250-mile range battery electric vehicle (BEV) in ride-hailing today assuming no federal or state incentives compared to a hybrid.  The difference in cost varies depending on EV charging assumptions with low-cost home charging being the most cost-effective option today. Source: Slowik, Wappelhorst, & Lutsey (2019)

 

Fast forward to 2030 when electric vehicles have become more cost competitive with hybrids, and these numbers look significantly better.

In the case of home-charging, either 50% or 100% of the time, the electric vehicle trips are lower cost than the gasoline hybrid – offering significant savings per trip. See the figure below.

It’s only in the 100% DC fast charging case where the EV has higher projected trip costs than a gasoline hybrid – requiring about a 22 cents per trip discount compared to the gasoline hybrid to even things out.

Consider a hypothetical case where Uber and Lyft had to have 100% of their rides be electric in 2030. The cost, spread out over all of their rides, would amount to 22 cents per trip if all Uber and Lyft drivers charged exclusively at DC fast chargers.  The cost would be significantly lower, and likely even result in substantial savings, with even a modest fraction of home charging.

 



By 2030, only electric vehicles relying on 100 percent DC fast charging have a higher cost of operation compared to gasoline vehicles. Access to lower cost home charging for some charging results in significant cost savings per trip. Source: Based on Slowik, Wappelhorst, & Lutsey (2019) with updates from ICCT’s 2030 EV cost study, Lutsey & Nicholas (2019)

 

These hypothetical scenarios are admittedly an over-simplification. Simply zeroing out the cost difference between an EV and a hybrid is not likely to be enough on its own to dramatically increase EV adoption in ride-hailing in the near-term, though it would certainly help. These estimates do however suggest the costs to transition the ride-hailing fleet to EVs over the next decade appear to be reasonable and that doing so is likely to result in significant cost savings.

Ride-hailing electrification can accelerate DC fast charging investment

In any future scenario, some level of DC fast charging is going to be critical to the success of battery electric vehicle ride-hailing. The limited availability of DC fast charging today has been a limitation to some EV deployments in ride-hailing pilot programs. But a clear commitment by ride-hailing companies and policy makers to transition to EVs could be a significant catalyst to drive bigger investment in DC fast charging infrastructure.

Here’s why: DC fast charging isn’t cheap to install and the business case is challenging when utilization rates are low. As the chargers are more fully utilized, the fixed costs are spread out over more sales and the cost to deliver a charge per vehicle can decrease. The figure below illustrates how more drivers charging can lower DC fast charging costs so they are comparable to the cost of operating conventional or hybrid cars.

 



Demand charges (shown in brown) are often fixed based on the maximum power draw at any given time, so increasing the amount of time the charger is utilized throughout the day doesn’t increase this cost. As more charging events occur, the more economic DC fast charging becomes. Source: ICCT

Many ride-hailing vehicles, because they are heavily utilized on a daily basis, are more likely to rely on DC fast charging than typical EVs. Deployment of electric ride-hailing vehicles would provide more certainty for charging infrastructure company investments since there would be a greater guarantee of charger utilization. There are already examples of this happening, as EVgo is building a charging network dedicated to charging ride-hailing vehicles leased through Maven Gig and Electrify America is partnering with Lyft on access to EV charging as well.

Additional benefits for both drivers and infrastructure providers could accrue if ride-hailing companies assist with scheduling charging to avoid queuing at chargers, minimizing downtime for drivers, and steering charging towards times that are beneficial to the grid and the environment (such as in the middle of the day when there is the potential for an oversupply of solar power).

Ride-hailing could, and should, be well on its way to full electrification by 2030.

The overall economics of electric ride-hailing will continue to improve as EV costs decline and charging infrastructure grows.  But company actions will be a critical catalyst to accelerate this transition.  In my next blog post, I’ll look at what ways ride-hailing companies can support drivers in accelerating this transition followed by a future post on what policy makers can do.

 

Thanks to ICCT for their analysis on EVs and ride-hailing which I relied heavily on in this blog post and, in particular, to Pete Slowik for providing the costs estimates and figure for electric ride-hailing in 2030

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/electrifying-ride-hailing-part-1-six-reasons-why-uber-and-lyft-must-go-electric/ Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:49:33 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=70769 Use of ride-hailing, like Uber and Lyft, has exploded since it was first introduced a decade ago, and continues to grow. These services are becoming a significant percentage of miles driven in some urban cores, raising concerns about congestion impacts, rising climate emissions, and impacts on transit systems. Addressing these challenges will be critical to ensuring that ride-hailing contributes to a more sustainable, equitable, and low-carbon transportation system that is so critically needed. In this blog series, I will tackle just one these challenges – pollution from ride-hailing – and focus on one critical strategy for getting ride-hailing on a lower carbon path – electrified rides.

This blog makes the case for electrification and why it is critical for Uber and Lyft to lead, rather than lag on transportation electrification. In a follow on post, I will look more closely at how Uber and Lyft can rapidly electrify rides now and over the next decade. Understanding the necessity, opportunities, and challenges of ride-hailing electrification is particularly important right now as California embarks on developing the first in the nation pollution standards for ride-hailing companies, and other states and cities look for solutions to tackle pollution from transportation.

Here are 6 Reasons Ride-Hailing Needs to Go Electric:

1. Ride-hailing trips are more polluting than regular car trips

Recently released data by California regulators indicates the average ride-hailing trip, per passenger mile, is 50 percent more polluting than the average car trip. Yes – you read that right. 50 percent worse.

The California data, based on reported rides for 2018, shows ride-hailing vehicles are on average about 20 percent more efficient than the average passenger vehicle. And I know Prius’s are a popular ride-hailing vehicle in California. Just the other day I spotted a Prius with the license plate “NO LYFT”. I laughed out loud. I wonder how many times someone tried to get into that person’s car looking for a ride before the new license plate?

Offsetting the fact that ride-hailing vehicles are more efficient is that the fact that ride-hailing vehicles travel A LOT of miles between rides. The California data reveals that nearly 40 percent of the total miles driven by ride-hailing vehicles is deadheading – miles driven with no passengers. This is not unique to California. Data released by Fehr & Peers last year examining ride-hailing in 6 cities across the country shows similar amounts of deadheading across all cities.

Included in California’s assessment are pooled rides – rides that are shared between different passengers traveling in similar directions. About 22 percent of ride-hailing trip miles in California are for requested pooled rides – kudos to all you car-poolers out there. Though not all of these ride-requests are matched with another traveler, when they are matched, they help reduce the emissions per trip.

Despite pooled rides and more efficient vehicles, the added miles from deadheading means that ride-hailing trips are higher polluting per passenger than average passenger car travel. While this analysis is based on California data, the same general trend is likely to hold true in other locations.



California regulators recently assessed emissions from ride-hailing, finding that carbon intensity of ride-hailing trips per passenger is 50 percent higher than average California passenger vehicle trips. Source: SB1014 Clean Miles Standard 2018 Base-year Emissions Inventory Report

2. It’s worse than that: ride-hailing trips displace lower-polluting alternatives than private cars

Yes, a 50 percent increase in pollution is pretty bad. But the truth is, it’s even worse. The 50 percent increase assumes the ride-hailing trip is replacing another car trip. But in reality, ride-hailing trips replace all kinds of different trips.

Several researchers have led surveys across several different cities to find out what type of transportation modes people would have taken if they didn’t ride in an Uber or Lyft. Results from the study below showthat many ride-hailing trips are displacing lower emission or zero emission trip options that passengers would have taken, like walking or biking. In some cases, respondents said they would have skipped the trip altogether if it wasn’t for the availability of a ride-hailing option.

Bottom line is that ride-hailing trips are AT LEAST 50 percent more polluting than the trips they are displacing.



This figure shows survey results from California riders taking either a non-pooled ride (“Ridehailing”) or a pooled ride (“Shared ridehailing” and what they would have taken otherwise. Source: Panel Study of Emerging Transportation Technologies and Trends in California: Phase 2 Data Collection

3. Electrifying ride-hailing vehicles will slash climate pollution

Why is electrifying ride-hailing a good climate solution? Climate emissions from EVs are much lower than emissions from the average gasoline vehicle everywhere across the country. Our most recent analysis indicates in California, for example, an EV produces the emissions of a 109 mpg gasoline vehicle. That’s a 75 percent reduction compared to an average new gasoline vehicle and even 50% lower than a 50 mpg hybrid.



This map shows the mile per gallon rating a gasoline vehicle would need to be to have similar emissions to an EV charged on the regional electricity grid. Continued movement away from coal powered electricity in the U.S. and growing renewables has led to steadily improving emissions from EVs. Source: https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-get-cleaner

4. Ride-hailing cars are used more intensely than regular cars

This is actually good news in terms of getting emissions benefits bang for your buck. Because many ride-hailing vehicles are used more intensely than the average vehicle, it also means electrifying them results in greater emissions benefits. Analysis by Alan Jenn at University California Davis found that electric ride-hailing vehicles (noted as TNC or Transportation Network Company in the figure) can deliver nearly three times the emissions savings compared to electrifying a typical passenger vehicle because they travel many more miles per year.



Ride-hailing (TNC) vehicles travel more miles per year than private vehicles resulting in greater electrification benefits per car over a given time period. Source: Electrifying Ride-Sharing: Transition to a Cleaner Future

5. Electrifying ride-hailing vehicles can help reduce inequitable exposure to air pollution

We can’t meet our climate goals without tackling transportation emissions, including from Lyft and Uber travel. But there’s another important reason to tackle pollution from ride-hailing vehicles – public health. Exposure to air pollution from cars and trucks has significant health impacts, and is not experienced equally. UCS analysis of air pollution found that on average, African American, Latino, and Asian Californians are exposed to more PM2.5 pollution from cars, trucks, and buses than white Californians. Similar results have been found for other areas of the country as well including the northeast region

The greatest exposure to these pollutants from on-road vehicles tend to be in urban areas – where Uber and Lyft vehicles operate most intensely. Electrifying Uber and Lyft trips could help reduce inequitable exposure to local air pollution in addition to lowering climate emissions.



The figure illustrates how exposure to pollution from on-road vehicles is higher in more densely populated areas, areas where ride-hailing tends to make up a larger fraction of vehicle miles. Source: Inequitable Exposure to Air Pollution from Vehicles in California

6. Electric ride-hailing vehicles will be more affordable for drivers

Here’s the good news. Because ride-hailing vehicles are used more intensely – particularly for full time ride-hailing drivers – the fuel savings and maintenance cost benefits of driving an EV accrue more quickly.

Research by the International Council on Clean Transportation concludes that “Even without purchasing incentives, BEVs [Battery Electric Vehicles] will become the most economically attractive technology for ridehailing operations in the 2023–2025 time frame.” There’s definitely a lot to unpack in the ICCT analysis some of which I will dive into in more detail in my next blog post, but the figure below is illustrative.

Today, a 250-mile range battery electric vehicle powered by home charging has a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than a conventional gasoline vehicle and within 3 years is projected to have lower total costs compared to a hybrid vehicle. These results include some state incentives but importantly exclude the $7500 federal tax credit that continues to be available for many manufacturers. ICCT notes that including the $7500 tax credit makes the 250-mile range EV lower total cost compared to hybrids today.



Battery electric vehicles are projected to become increasingly cost-competitive with conventional gasoline and hybrid vehicles over the next five years. Source: When does electrifying shard mobility make sense?

There is both optimism and reason for caution in these results.

The great news is that EVs are getting cheaper and ICCT’s analysis demonstrates that 250-mile range EVs (which are becoming more common), can not only be cost competitive in ride-hailing but be the economic winner. For full-time drivers who can access home charging and state and federal incentives, including the $7500 tax credit, an EV can pencil out right now. And in the not too distant future, the economics will improve significantly for all charging scenarios.

But it also indicates that both charging access and reducing barriers to EV ownership and leasing will be key to the success for electrifying ride-hailing in a big way.

Ride-hailing companies have a responsibility to step up on EVs

Based on its popularity, ride-hailing is clearly an attractive mode of travel for millions of Americans today and can serve to increase mobility for many who currently lack options. It can also serve as an effective first and last mile option for connecting people to transit and as effective means to pool rides. As I discuss in my previous blog post, Can Uber and Lyft be a Climate Solution? ride-hailing can be part of a lower carbon transportation system.

But after a decade of evolution and growth, it is clear that ride-hailing is increasing pollution despite the promising low-carbon visions laid out by ride-hailing companies. Ride-hailing companies disrupted transportation by bring a new model for mobility to the world and with this leadership comes responsibility. As these companies continue to grow, they need to step up to support a rapid transition toward electrification in order to make their promises of a low carbon future a near-term reality. Importantly, they need to do it in a way that avoids placing greater burdens on their drivers, but instead helps drivers realize the benefits of vehicle electrification.

In my next post, I’ll dive in more on the economics of electrifying ride-hailing, some of the efforts ride-hailing companies are currently pursuing, and how both policy and company actions can help move the needle toward greater electrification.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/vote-yes-on-san-francisco-proposition-d/ Thu, 31 Oct 2019 17:11:57 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=69053  

Proposition D is a chance for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft to contribute to a better transportation system in San Francisco.  We at the Union of Concerned Scientists are supporting Proposition D, together with a long list of other supporters, including Uber and Lyft themselves, Mayor London Breed, the entire San Francisco Board of Supervisors, 25 other elected leaders, the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, and 26 organizations committed to transit riders, bicycling and walking, tenants, and retirees, among other interests.

Read on for more information about what Proposition D will do and why this measure is important for reducing traffic and pollution and increasing safety and clean transportation choices. Most importantly, don’t forget to turn in your ballot by November 5, and to vote YES on Proposition D.

What is Proposition D?

The ballot initiative Proposition D will impose a small per-ride fee of 3.25% on ride-hailing trips in San Francisco. The fee will be cut in half (1.5%) for shared, pooled-rides. Rides provided in an electric vehicle would also see a reduced fee (1.5%) through 2024.

Funds raised through Prop D, approximately $30-35 million dollars annually, will support a variety of measures to help reduce traffic and congestion in San Francisco and make streets safer. These include more Muni drivers and traffic control officers, more Muni buses and trains, more bike and pedestrian safety, and more transit accessibility.

Why is Proposition D important?

Addressing pollution from transportation is the number one climate challenge in the U.S. today.  In California, despite our state’s long-standing leadership, climate emissions from transportation are still increasing.  Smart policy at all levels is needed to tackle transportation pollution while increasing personal mobility, especially for communities that are underserved by today’s system.

Ride-hailing is increasing congestion in San Francisco.  Undoubtedly, some San Francisco voters will be arriving at the polls on November 5^th  by Uber or Lyft. A study by Fehr and Peers, using data from Uber and Lyft, indicates that more than 13% of the vehicle miles traveled in San Francisco are coming from Uber and Lyft.  Some of these trips are displacing personal car or taxi trips, but studies indicate that more often than not, that urban riders would have taken transit, biked, walked, or not taken the trip at all if ride-hailing was not an option. That means more cars on the road slowing down commutes for everyone.  A study for the SF Country Transportation Agency concluded that 50% of increased congestion in SF between 2010 and 2016 was attributable to ride-hailing trips.  Congestion was around long before Uber and Lyft, so they can’t shoulder all the blame, but Prop D will help ensure ride-hailing is contributing to the solutions that reduce congestion including transit, walking and biking.

Ride-hailing trips are increasing climate emissions. Ride-hailing can be part of a lower carbon, sustainable transportation system, as I outlined in my previous blog post “Can Uber and Lyft be a Climate Solution”, but today ride-hailing trips are increasing emissions. One major reason for that is that about 40% of the miles traveled by ride-hailing vehicles in California are without passengers.  These are miles driven while Uber and Lyft drivers are waiting to pick-up a passenger and traveling to the pick-up location once a ride is requested.  Preliminary estimates by the California Air Resources Board indicate a ride-hailing trip may produce 75% more climate emissions than a comparable private car trip per passenger mile.

Proposition D can incentivize and fund a cleaner and safer transportation system in San Francisco. There are two key strategies to address the challenges of ride-hailing increasing traffic and pollution. One is to make sure ride-hailing vehicles are electric and the other is to make sure more ride-hailing trips are shared, or pooled, between multiple passengers.  Prop D supports electrification and pooling of ride-hailing trips by implementing a lower fee for these types of lower carbon trips. And the fees collected from Prop D will provide funding for new Muni trains and buses, hiring more Muni drivers and traffic control officers, expanding services for elderly and people with disabilities, and create more bike lanes, safe pedestrian crossings, and traffic signals.

 

Proposition D alone will not solve all of San Francisco’s congestion problems or eliminate pollution from cars and trucks or fund all transit needs and improvements.  Much more needs to be done to tackle pollution from both personal vehicles and those used in ride-hailing services. And more is being done. For example, UCS is supporting the development of the Clean Miles Standard, a regulation in California to set climate pollution and zero emission vehicle standards for ride-hailing companies statewide.  But there’s no silver bullet solution.  Both city and state policy will be important and Proposition D is a small, but important step for ride-hailing to contribute to a better transportation system for San Francisco.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/administration-goes-after-states-for-protecting-environment/ Fri, 06 Sep 2019 15:12:25 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=67918 The Trump administration has been on a collision course with California, and it appears that collision is imminent. An administrative action to undermine the authority granted to the state by the Clean Air Act to protect its citizens from vehicle pollution appears to be imminent. This illegal attack is not just harmful for the nation’s most populous state—it is an attack on the 13 states and the District of Columbia that follow California’s lead and, ultimately, the entire country. The American auto industry and the American public will be worse off as a result.

California’s laws to reduce pollution from cars and trucks have long been a target of the Trump administration. Along the way various officials have given lip service to a commitment to negotiate with California and the desire to maintain a national program. Yet the administration ended the supposed negotiations despite Congress members from their own party telling them to go back to the negotiating table.  There may be no surer sign that the administration negotiated with CA in bad faith than a deal that California and several automakers agreed to weeks ago. Fed up with an intransigent administration proposing actions that will undermine their businesses, BMW, Ford, Honda and VW agreed to a compromise agreement with California.

So it comes as little surprise that despite opposition from the regulated industry to a roll back and overwhelming public support for more efficient vehicles, the Trump administration is launching a direct attack on California’s long held authority to clean up vehicle pollution.

Trump legal strategy = throwing spaghetti at a wall

Successfully attacking California’s long held legal authority will be no easy task. The Trump administration has struggled to find a compelling argument for why California, and other states that follow it, cannot protect their citizens from vehicle pollution. They’ve come up with every excuse in the book and then some to claim California can’t do what it has done for decades.

They have claimed that California does not have an immediate and pressing need to reduce global warming emissions, when extreme heat, wildfires, drought, and sea level rise prove that California is at the front lines and needs action NOW.

They have claimed that eliminating tailpipe pollution via electrification, a critical step in the state’s fight against poor air quality, is somehow equivalent to setting fuel economy standards (it’s not).

They have claimed, incomprehensibly, that it is not possible to meet the zero-emission vehicle requirements of the state’s standards when manufacturers are both ahead of schedule and promising even more options.

The states will be fighting this in court…and so will we.

State leadership has been critical to protecting the environment, driving innovation in the auto industry, and bringing new clean car technologies to world from catalytic converters to electric vehicles. California’s laboratory for clean air technology and policy innovations has not only led to cleaner air across the US but across the globe. American automakers and technology companies have benefited from this leadership by being at the forefront of global automotive trends.

Fortunately, the Clean Air Act is crystal clear about the unique authority granted to California to be a leader. Unfortunately, this action by the administration will guarantee years of lawsuits and create enormous uncertainty for the industry at a time when the industry is navigating unprecedented technology disruption – from electric drivetrains to self-driving technology.

The states will be fighting this injustice in court, and we will be joining them in that fight—the stakes are too high to let this administration, not just ignore its responsibilities to protect this country, but to run roughshod over the longstanding environmental laws that are meant to protect us from such reckless behavior.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/nows-the-time-california-self-driving-cars/ Fri, 16 Aug 2019 13:13:20 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=67505 Traffic. I’m not a big fan. I’m lucky enough to have commuted to work by bike and BART for the last 15 years and avoided countless hours in gridlock. But last week, faced with the tricky summer camp logistics that comes with being a parent of two children, I had no choice but to drive. And I was reminded just how soul sucking bad traffic can be. By the end of the week I was exhausted.

Imagine if traffic gets even worse? Uber and Lyft are already being implicated in the rise of congestion in San Francisco and other cities.  Add self-driving cars in the coming few years to the mix and things could look even worse. But it doesn’t have to turn out that way.

As I noted in my last blog post, automated vehicles (AVs) could be an integral part of a future multi-modal transportation system. For example, AVs could facilitate connections to high quality mass transit, increase sharing of rides, and accelerate a transition to electric vehicles. But ensuring self-driving cars improve our transportation system will take thoughtful policy from local, state, and federal decision makers. Without it we are likely to end up with more traffic clogging our streets, and we will fail to cut transportation pollution anywhere close to what we need to. Plus, the last thing we need are more cars on the road emitting carbon and making the climate crisis worse.

California is not prepared for self-driving cars

California’s known for being a pioneer in transportation innovation. Everything from the invention of freeways (for better or worse!) to kick-starting  the EV revolution.  So California must be prepared for AVs. Right?

Wrong. So far, the state’s primary actions on AVs have been led by the DMV. They’ve focused on the rules of the road for AVs including requirements for companies seeking permits to test the vehicles on public roads.  But they aren’t taking into account climate pollution or a whole host of other issues that come up with AV deployment, from impacts to workers and economic development issues, to congestion and infrastructure needs.  The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, as part of a multi-agency work group, has helped organize a set of helpful principles around AV deployment which is a good start, but turning these principles into actions is a critical next step.

California has the opportunity to start planning ahead before this technology is commonplace on our streets and Senate Bill 59, introduced by Senator Ben Allen, would do just that.

What does SB 59 do?

SB 59 creates the California Council on the Future of Transportation. The title is a bit grandiose perhaps, but if created, could profoundly influence the future of transportation in California.  The Council is charged with recommending policies to the Governor and legislature to maximize the benefits of a self-driving future.  Currently, there are piecemeal approaches, with different cities trying different things and very little guidance on the broad ranges of issues and interests involved. SB 59 can bring all these pieces together and catalyze the statewide innovative, multi-stakeholder thinking we need to maximize the benefits of new technologies while addressing these challenges.

To cover the wide range of issues related to transportation and deployment of self-driving cars, the committee would bring together a diverse mix of stakeholders. Committee members would come from both industry and public interest groups as well as local and state government agencies.  These range from representatives from labor organizations, research institutions, disability rights and pedestrian safety groups, health and science organizations, and environmental justice advocates.  Technology companies, automakers, and motorists would also be represented. State and local agency representation would span local transit agency representation to state department of transportation, DMV Air Resources Board, Workforce Development, Office of Business and Economic Development and more.

The issues raised by self-driving cars are many and the committee is charged with reporting back to the legislature on several topics with its first report due by January 2022, and subsequent reports due every two years thereafter. The topics include, but are not limited to, road safety, infrastructure improvements, reducing congestion and vehicle miles traveled, furthering the state’s environmental, public health and energy goals, labor and economic impacts, accessibility and insurance.

Will self driving cars be climate heroes?

Importantly, the legislation requires establishing subcommittees to delve into specific issue areas.  With such a broad group of stakeholders and issues to cover, this is a critical component to ensure progress is made.

The bill would establish a subcommittee to examine the health and sustainability issues related to self-driving vehicles and would be guided by the Automated Vehicle Principles for Healthy and Sustainable Communities formerly released by a multi-agency working group.  These principles, similar to policy principles UCS previously developed, importantly call out the need for self-driving cars to be shared and electric, to support highly quality transit and active transportation (walking and biking), and to improve livability. They also call for improving transportation equity by ensuring that self-driving cars increase access to mobility for communities and individuals currently lacking affordable transportation options. Our recent report, Where are Self-driving Cars Taking Us?,  highlights the importance of proactive policy to achieve this outcome, otherwise self-driving cars could end up exacerbating pollution and congestion in communities already overburdened.

What kind of recommendations might the committee come up with to address climate emissions related to AV deployment? Road pricing to encourage pooling of rides, investments to improve or expand mass transit systems, setting limits on private vehicle use when no passengers are present, and incentives or requirements for electric drive are the types of policy ideas that should be explored by the committee amongst others. Many of these solutions aren’t unique to AVs, but become even more critical as AVs hit the road.

Now’s the right time to prepare for self-driving cars



A Waymo self-driving vehicle in Mountain View CA.

We are already seeing the negative impacts of Uber and Lyft on congestion and public transit in urban centers. A recent analysis, released by Uber and Lyft, found 13 percent of all vehicle travel in San Francisco is from Uber and Lyft and that about 45 percent of travel was without any passengers. Self-driving cars are likely to be deployed in similar services and exacerbate these problems.

Self-driving cars are already on the road in California, shuttling employees at companies like Google and Cruise, and it may take a few years or more before they substantially replace regular cars. Even if the technology takes longer than expected to mature (as some are now thinking), interest in the technology does not appear to be waning.  When I checked how many technology and auto companies were registered to test self-driving cars earlier this year, I estimated about 40 companies registered.  The list is now over 60 and that’s only in California. The longer timeline for AV deployment provides a window of opportunity for policymakers and they should take advantage of it.

The California Legislature should pass SB 59

Transportation emissions are the largest source of climate emissions in CA and they’ve continued to grow despite our best efforts.  We can’t afford to take a wait and see approach with AVs. SB 59 is an important step in creating the level of coordination necessary to realize the promise of emerging self-driving cars and avert outcomes we want to avoid. It ensures state and regional decision-makers, state transportation officials and other stakeholders have a forum to coordinate on various aspects of AV deployment before it’s too late.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/self-driving-cars-need-climate-smart-direction/ Thu, 07 Feb 2019 18:49:46 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=64066 The roving autonomous vehicles on the streets of San Francisco are one of the frequent reminders on my daily commute that our transportation system is changing. But will self-driving cars be good or bad for climate change?

Imaginations can run wild with “heaven or hell” scenarios of automated cars.  Imagine zooming around uncongested roads and highways while passengers attend to their social media, relax with friends, or take in a movie in a clean, electric vehicle.  Or, in the darker vision, zombie cars with no passengers are clogging roads and spewing pollution, urban sprawl is given a new life, and marginalized communities continue to lack good transportation options. As this technology comes to market, it will be up to decision makers to set us on the right course with smart policies.

Some researchers have been putting pen to paper to better understand the potential climate risks of self-driving cars (or autonomous or automated vehicles (AVs) as they are otherwise called) as well as their potential climate benefits. This research is providing important insights into the potential for building a modern transportation system that is less polluting, less congested, more equitable and more efficient than what we have today. It also highlights the significant risks of inaction and the difficulty of achieving the best outcomes.

3 Revolutions and a Multi-Modal Future: Autonomous, electric, and sharing rides

Let’s start with the positive vision first. Self-driving car technologies are paired with electric vehicles, which we’ve shown have lower carbon emissions no matter where you live in the U.S.  In addition, AVs usher in a new wave of transportation services—think Uber and Lyft 2.0—where rides are more convenient than individual vehicle ownership and are cost-competitive.  This leads to a reduction in personal car ownership, since not owning a car is now a more viable, cheaper option for households.  Reduced car-ownership alone doesn’t solve the problem, but when paired with increased access to mobility options like shared bikes, scooters, and efficient mass transit, individuals now choose from a variety of options for each trip, rather than always defaulting to the car formerly parked in their driveway. Sharing or pooling of rides is seamless and offers a lower-cost option, access to faster moving car-pool lanes and lower tolls, while reducing the number of cars on the road.  This ideal future of clean, equitable, and accessible mobility is one of autonomous, electric, and pooled car trips combined with urban design and infrastructure that supports walking, scooters, bikes, and mass transit, and pricing signals that steer choices towards the cleanest, most efficient modes of travel.



Figure 1 Adapted from “Three Revolutions in Urban Transportation“, 2017.

What happens to climate emissions in this future? Researchers at University of California Davis and Institute for Transportation & Development Policy examined a future scenario where AVs are incorporated into a highly shared, multimodal, and electric urban transportation system.  They found, globally, urban transportation pollution could be reduced by 80 percent by 2050 and massive increases in congestion could be avoided, with vehicle miles traveled actually declining by 25 percent instead of increasing by 50 percent in the business as usual case (see figure).

This scenario of a future transportation system meets the travel demands of a growing population while driving down climate emissions.  And it requires coordinated policies to work, including compact development as well as policies that make the lowest emission and most efficient modes of transport the most attractive.  But what if that’s not what happens? What if we don’t make the decisions necessary to support the future described above, and instead take a hands-off approach to AV deployment?

The nightmare AV future: More vehicle miles, more congestion, more pollution, less equity

As wonderful as the vision of “three revolutions” is, it would be foolish to think that this vision of the future is likely—or even possible—without a lot of work. Here are a few ways that things could go wrong.

AVs could dramatically increase driving

If AVs primarily enable increased single occupancy vehicle trips, we are in trouble. One widely-cited study looked at a wide range of impacts AVs could have on energy consumption, travel and carbon emissions.  And there are many factors (see figure). Everything from the energy savings of robot eco-driving to energy and travel increases from newly empowered individuals who previously did not have the ability to drive their own vehicle. There are several potential impacts on both sides of the ledger, but the biggest potential increase in energy use (and by association, emissions) comes from a behavioral response to AVs.  If driving can now be productive time, longer commutes, for example, may not be the burden they once were.  This is one way in which AVs could reduce the time-cost of driving (see “travel cost reduction” results in the figure) and increase overall vehicle travel – as much as 60% according to the study.  Recent modeling of possible AV deployment in the Washington, D.C. metro region showed similar results, estimating that vehicle miles traveled could increase 46-66% with the introduction of self-driving cars.

So will people really drive that much more? Some researchers did an experiment to see what would happen to a household’s vehicle travel if they had access to a vehicle and a driver for a week – mimicking life with a self-driving car. Not surprisingly, most households used the vehicle more often (83% average increase in miles traveled), and even sent the car and driver out on errands (21% of the increase was zero-occupancy).  While there were only 13 participants in the study, which limits the generalization of the findings, the experiment does illustrate the potential behavioral shifts when a vehicle that can drive itself is introduced into a household. Why not send the car to pick-up your dry cleaning or take that trip to Aunt Esmerelda’s you’ve been putting off?

AVs could increase congestion and undermine transit, instead of complementing it

Pooling rides is essential to making AVs deliver on their potential to be clean, equitable and efficient.  Pooling rides for people with similar origins and destinations can deliver more passenger trips from fewer vehicle trips, which is key to making efficient use of vehicles (reducing pollution per trip) and roads (reducing congestion per trip).  But while pooled AVs could help increase the average occupancy of cars, they could also undermine our most important current source of pooling, mass transit.  A car with 2-3 people sharing a ride is an improvement over each person driving alone, but it is a lot more vehicles, pollution and congestion than 30 people in a bus, or several hundred in a subway or train.

Based on the current evidence, especially in larger cities where mass transit is especially important, ride-hailing is pulling more people from modes like transit, walking and biking than it is pooling passengers who would otherwise drive alone. This mode shift, along with additional trips that wouldn’t have been made in the absence of ride-hailing options, is leading to increases in congestion and increased vehicle miles traveled.  (See research by Clewlow & Mishra, Schaller, and University of Kentucky) Moreover, reduced ridership on mass transit hurts the economics of these critical systems as they lose fare revenue.  Adding AVs to ride-hailing fleets could drive down ride costs and exacerbate the changes in vehicle travel and transit impacts we are already seeing.

Roads snarled in congestion are not a good outcome for anyone, including companies that want to use these roads to sell people rides, pooled or otherwise.  So, new rules and incentives will be needed to efficiently manage transportation networks as private companies operate what are in effect private transit systems with occupancy sometimes higher than today’s cars but most often lower than today’s mass transit. Policy-makers will need to prioritize the movement of people over vehicles with policies that favor higher occupancy trips and modes. These could  take the form of preferential pricing, access to restricted lanes and ensuring that the financial model of mass-transit adapts along the way

If we don’t succeed in ensuring rides are largely pooled in both cars and in mass transit modes like rail and subway, not only will congestion get worse, but we will fail to reduce climate emissions to safe levels as electrifying our transportation system is simply not enough.   In the UC Davis/ITDP study, a “2 Revolution” scenario with AVs and widespread electrification but WITHOUT significant pooling of trips resulted in emissions reductions globally in 2050 by only 45% – far less than needed to stabilize our climate.

AVs could exacerbate or perpetuate inequities in our current transportation system



A new report by The Greenlining Institute outlines strategies to ensure AVs benefit all communities.

Our current car-ownership-based transportation system does not serve all communities in an equitable way.  Lower income households spend a larger share of their income on transportation than wealthier households. Those who cannot afford a car, or are too old or young to drive, or have physical handicaps to driving, have to rely on a transit system that often doesn’t meet their needs.

AVs could improve mobility for communities historically underserved by our current transportation system – if the technology enables greater access to affordable, accessible and reliable transportation.  If, however, AV technology is primarily relegated to private car ownership and leads to increased congestion or undermines public transit, as described above, the current inequities will be exacerbated.

A new report by the Greenlining Institute describes in more details the health, economic and mobility risks of AVs for marginalized groups like people of color, the poor, the elderly, and those with disabilities, and offers a list of recommendations to policymakers for ensuring the rollout of AVs leads to greater mobility options for all. UCS will also be releasing a report soon with results from an analysis of the Washington DC metro area and how the rollout of AVs in that region could impact transportation equity.  This research is important for informing the policies necessary to maximize the benefits of self-driving technology.

Now’s the time to get on the right path

Research is providing some helpful insights on understanding the potential role of AVs in a transportation system that cuts climate emissions and improves mobility.  It also offers a cautionary tale of the potential for AVs to dramatically increase emissions and exacerbate congestion if decision makers are not proactive and thoughtful about putting in place the policies that will lead us to the best outcomes.

We are starting to see some positive action on this front.  In California, legislation (SB1014)signed into law last year requires state agencies to develop standards to ensure ride-hailing companies are moving towards greater shared, zero-emission trips. Since AVs are likely to be rolled out in ride-hailing services, these rules will affect AV deployment.  But that’s only a drop in the bucket. Developing effective public policy to ensure AVs deliver climate and transportation system benefits requires shared goals, effective interagency coordination, and development and implementation of effective policy at different levels of government.  In California, UCS is sponsoring legislation with CALSTART (SB59 authored by Senator Ben Allen) that would get the ball rolling at the state level and ensure proactive policies can be deployed as AV technology is hitting the street.

Smart policies are critical for ensuring self-driving car technology ushers in a new era of clean, affordable, and efficient transportation rather than the zombie car apocalypse.  AVs may be able to drive themselves, but it is up to us to steer them in the right direction.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/can-uber-and-lyft-be-a-climate-solution/ Wed, 24 Oct 2018 17:47:15 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=62127 Governor Brown signed several pieces of legislation this year on clean energy and transportation and one of those, signed on a boat in San Francisco bay on a windy afternoon, was squarely aimed at ensuring ride-hailing companies contribute to California’s climate efforts.  The California Clean Miles Standard and Incentive Program (SB 1014 authored by Senator Skinner) brings ride-hailing companies into the climate solutions fold by establishing decreasing climate emissions targets (yet to be determined) for companies like Uber and Lyft. This ground-breaking legislation is the first of its kind, and sets an important example for how the increasingly popular transportation option of ride-hailing can help accelerate emission reductions from transportation, rather than exacerbate them.

Why ride-hailing is important for climate change

App-based on-demand ride services (aka ride-hailing) have been a huge boon to mobility for millions of people, providing a convenient option for getting from point A to point B. But these services also have implications for the amount of global warming emissions coming from transportation. And since transportation climate emissions in California are growing and now account for more than 40% of statewide emissions, getting a handle on this source of pollution is critical.

Ride-hailing may help or hinder efforts to reduce emissions for several reasons:

• Ride-hailing is growing rapidly. Trip miles by Uber and Lyft increased more than 100% in 2016 and greater than 60% in 2017 (CPUC report). As of 2017, Uber was operating in 172 cities and towns in California and Lyft in more than 92. Statewide, ride hailing is only a small percentage of overall miles traveled (California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) estimated it at 2%) but in some places is a sizable percentage of daily trips.  In San Francisco, for example, SFMTA estimates that 15% of in-town trips, and 20% of total miles traveled during the week, is in ride-hailing vehicles.
• Ride-hailing is increasing vehicle miles traveled and congestion. While ride-hailing is getting some people to leave their own cars at home, it is also leading to additional car trips that increase vehicle emissions and congestion in some cities. That’s because ride-hailed trips often displace trips that would have been completed by walking, biking, or transit, or add trips that would not have been taken at all. As noted in this white paper on the Future of Mobility by researchers from the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at UC Berkeley, “in 3 out of 4 studies, more than a third of respondents would have taken public transit, walked, or biked, in place of” ride-hailing. Furthermore, even when they displace personal car trips, ride-hail trips can end up adding more vehicle miles than the car trip they are displacing because “dead-heading” miles—miles traveled without any passengers between drop-offs and pick-ups—can account for an estimated 20% (SFMTA) to 40% (CPUC) of all ride-hailing miles. Several cities are trying to get a better handle on congestion impacts from ride-hailing services from New York to San Francisco and solutions to deal with it.
• Ride-hailing could usher in a new era of car-pooling. It’s never been easier to share a ride with someone if you live in an area where UberPOOL or LyftLine are available. In California, pooled-rides represent more than 30% of the ride requests by Uber and Lyft passengers (CPUC). Significantly increasing vehicle occupancy by pooling rides is one way to increase passenger miles without increasing vehicle miles or pollution and app-based services are providing the tools to make this work.
• Ride-hailing could accelerate the electrification of vehicle miles traveled. A typical car travels about 12,000 mile per year. But a driver for Uber or Lyft could easily drive double that or more. As an example, a report on taxis in New York City indicated a typical cab travels 70,000 miles in one year. So an EV used in a ride-hailing service has the potential to travel a whole lot more miles than a typical EV used by an individual for personal transportation. Replacing gasoline-powered ride-hailing trips with EV ride-hailing trips could slash climate emissions since powering cars with electricity instead of oil reduces emissions, even when accounting for emissions from generating the electricity.
• Ride-hailing has the potential to support greater use of mass transit or could possibly undermine it. With easily accessible ride-hailing offering an attractive first-mile and last-mile option, commuters may find some forms of mass transit more attractive. A survey carried out by researchers at UC Davis of ride-hailing users found respondents increased their use of heavy-rail (including subways and commuter rail) and walking (see figure). But it’s not all good news. Respondents also reported a decrease in bus and light rail use and on net, the study authors report an overall decrease in transit use by current ride-hailing users. So ride-hailing could help improve mass transit, by making it more accessible, convenient and efficient than it is today, but it could also undermine transit by pulling passengers away.


Source: Disruptive Transportation: The Adoption, Utilization, and Impacts of Ride-Hailing in the United States, October 2017 by Regina R. Clewlow and Gouri Shankar Mishra

Ultimately, ride-hailing services will make the biggest contributions to reducing climate pollution from transportation if they lead to more pooled rides, less overall VMT, more vehicle electrification, greater utilization of mass transit and more biking, walking or scooting. But that outcome is far from guaranteed without clear public policy direction.  And that’s just what SB1014 is designed to provide.

The California Clean Miles Standard and Incentive Program – SB1014

• Establishes a global warming emissions baseline for ride-hailing companies by January 2020

The new law requires the California Air Resources Board to establish an emissions baseline, on a per-passenger-mile basis, for ride-hailing companies.

Here’s a basic example of how to calculate an emissions per-passenger-mile metric. First, take all the vehicle miles traveled by ride-hailing vehicles – waiting for passengers, between pick-ups and drop-offs, and during the actual trip with a passenger or passengers. Then estimate the emissions for those miles traveled based on the efficiency of the vehicles used.  Finally, divide that by the number of miles each passenger actually travels in the vehicle.

The bill does add one more factor into the mix – did the trip facilitate walking, riding, or other modes of zero emission or active transport? It’s not exactly clear how this will ultimately be wrapped into the calculation.  Here’s one possibility. If a passenger uses Uber Express Pool and walks a few blocks to the pickup location, that might be factored into the overall passenger miles, hence reducing the overall emissions per passenger mile figure.

• By 2021, sets annual emission reduction and zero emission vehicle targets starting in 2023 to be implemented by the Public Utilities Commission

After setting a baseline, the California Air Resource Board is tasked with establishing annual emission reduction targets to apply to companies starting in 2023. Along with setting overall emission per passenger mile targets, the bill also requires specific targets for increasing passenger miles traveled using zero-emission vehicles. The CPUC will implement the actual standard given their role in regulating ride-hailing companies.

• By January 2022, and every two years after, requires companies develop emission reduction plans.

Once targets are set, ride-hailing companies will develop plans to demonstrate how they will comply with the standards.

• Calls for state agencies to consider these goals in their vehicle electrification planning and funding decisions.

Several state agencies, including the California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission and the California Air Resources Board, that make decisions about funding for vehicle incentives and charging infrastructure deployment will now consider ride-hailing electrification goals in their decision making.  The bill also calls for the program to support sustainable land-use objectives, and clean mobility goals for low and moderate-income drivers, while minimizing any negative impacts.

Setting a strong standard will ensure ride-hailing is a climate friend, rather than foe

This bill sets up a structure for ensuring ride-hailing delivers on its potential to help accelerate climate reductions in the transportation sector.  It complements the current efforts of Uber and Lyft to promote electrification on their platforms and reduce climate emissions. It also ensures they are accountable for making steady progress while providing flexibility in how they meet the goals.

SB1014 could have required a more straightforward metric, like emissions per vehicle mile traveled or just an EV deployment requirement, but that would have only encouraged lower emitting vehicles.  Instead, by using an emissions per-passenger-mile metric, the standard can encourage a broader range of positive outcomes including: use of cleaner ride-hailing vehicles, greater vehicle occupancy (i.e., pooling), more efficient operations with less deadheading, and encouraging increased use of active transportation. All of these are ultimately important in moving toward a more sustainable, and low emission transportation future.

What’s next?

The California Air Resources Board is on tap to develop an emissions baseline with finalization by January 2020 so I’d expect a public announcement in the next few months regarding a process.

No one except for Uber and Lyft knows exactly how many miles Uber and Lyft vehicles are driving, the vehicles that are driving them, or how many passengers are in them. All of this information will be critical to developing a baseline to measure future emission reductions against.  Ride-hailing companies will need to be transparent with regulators about the underlying data they are reporting on and be accountable for its accuracy.

Setting the structure and stringency levels of the program will be the next critical challenge.  If both Lyft and Uber stand by their public commitments to more sustainable transportation, then the process for developing emissions targets should prove to be productive.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/california-taking-action-on-clean-transportation/ Wed, 19 Sep 2018 17:18:09 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=61268 With last week’s Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco all wrapped up, it’s time to get down to the business of turning words into actions.  And next week, California is poised to do just that.  The California Air Resources Board agenda for next Thursday and Friday is chock-full of transformative policies that, if adopted, will accelerate deployment of electric cars and transit buses, increase electric charging and hydrogen refueling infrastructure, bring more low carbon alternatives to diesel and gasoline to the state, and ensure consumers in California and the 12 other states that follow California’s standards continue to have cleaner, more efficient vehicle choices.

Transportation emissions – the pollution from cars, trucks, buses, planes, ships and trains – are proving to be stubborn.  They’ve been increasing and becoming a larger portion of economy-wide emissions. They are now over 40 percent of California’s climate pollution. They are stubborn in part because vehicles stay on the road for a long time.  So even though standards that bring more efficient gasoline vehicles and EVs to market are very effective, they only apply to new vehicles. And new cars aren’t purchased like cell phones. Cars can last 15 years or more which means replacing all the cars on the road today with new ones takes time. Looking beyond passenger vehicles is also essential.  About 70% of transportation emissions in California are from passenger cars and trucks. The rest come from other types of vehicles and the fuels they burn.

California transportation emissions are more than 40% of the state’s total and are on the rise



Source: California’s Emissions Trends Report 2000-2016

There is no silver bullet solution policy on transportation, so a combination of coordinated and complementary policies is our best bet. The issues before the California Air Resources board meeting this month demonstrate this multi-prong approach in action.  Here are three of them:

1. Extension of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard to 2030

The Low Carbon Fuel Standard requires gasoline and diesel fuel providers to reduce the carbon content of the fuel they sell in California. The current standard requires reducing the carbon intensity by 10 percent by 2020.  The board is set to vote on September 27^th to strengthen the standard to require a 20% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030.  What’s the big deal?  This policy isn’t just about blending lower carbon biofuels like ethanol or renewable diesel into petroleum-based fuels. It’s also about expanding cleaner fuel choices like electricity and hydrogen that are needed to power zero emission vehicles.

The board isn’t just considering raising the bar on this policy, but considering some important changes designed to accelerate deployment of electric vehicle solutions, including:

Establish a statewide rebate program for electric vehicles funded by the clean fuel credits earned through vehicle charging. This comes at a critical time when some companies like Tesla and GM are starting to hit the cap on the federal EV tax credit.

Support electric vehicle charging and hydrogen fueling station deployment by providing financial incentives to station developers. This will help accelerate investments and help get California on the path to reach Gov Brown’s goal of 250,000 vehicle chargers and 200 hydrogen stations by 2025.

My colleague Jeremy Martin explains all of this in his recent blog post about how the Low Carbon Fuel Standard is clearing the roadblocks to electric vehicles. But the bottom line is that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard ensures that the fuels powering our transportation system become cleaner over time and, in the process, provides direct incentives for the clean vehicles and fueling infrastructure we need to make it happen.

2. Requiring electric transit buses

Ever ride on a battery electric transit bus? If you’ve ridden a bus in China, the answer is likely ‘yes’. They’ve deployed more than 400,000 electric buses over the last few years. Modern battery electric and fuel cell powered buses are starting to gain traction in the U.S. and several transit agencies are making moves to deploy the technology. The Innovative Clean Transit standard being heard by CARB on September 28^th is aimed at accelerating that transition and making every bus in California either hydrogen or electricity powered by 2040.  That seems like a long way off, but that means transit agencies need to start buying electric buses now, and before 2030, 100% of their new bus purchases will need to be zero tailpipe emission buses.  This standard will ensure that transit agencies in California are all moving forward together and transit riders around the state get the benefits of a quieter, cleaner bus ride. And the communities these buses operate get the benefit  of zero-tailpipe emissions . It will also help further advance electric drive in the heavy-duty vehicle sector paving the way for more electric trucks.

My colleague Jimmy O’Dea covers the finer details in his recent blog post and UCS’s recent Got Science Podcast on electric buses.

3. Defending California clean car standards from Trump administration attacks

California has its own vehicle standards for cars and trucks, which 12 other states and the District of Columbia follow. California has had vehicle emission standards for decades, bringing huge benefits to the state as well as other states that follow the same rules. The rest of the country as a whole has also benefited as clean car technology, driven by California’s leadership, (the catalytic converter comes to mind).  The federal clean car standards are currently very similar to California’s standards and, as a result, California has accepted automaker compliance with federal standards as compliance with their own.

The board is proposing a change to California vehicle standards to further clarify that California will only accept compliance with the federal standards as they are currently written.  This is not a change in policy. California never signed-up to throw its authority to regulate vehicle emission out the window by accepting compliance with federal standards, whatever they may be.  And now that the Trump administration has made their intentions to freeze the standards in place at 2021 levels clear, California is simply clarifying that California standards will indeed be enforced.

Ideally, federal and California standards would remain aligned and continue to push forward on making new cars and trucks cleaner, more efficient and more affordable to drive. But barring an unforeseen change in the Trump administration’s anti-science agenda, that seems unlikely.  Making this regulatory language clarification makes it crystal clear that California intends to exercise its right to protect its residents from car and truck pollution as it always has.

The way forward

As with any change there is resistance. Oil companies have long attacked the low carbon fuel standard and automakers have resisted vehicle standards for decades. Many transit agencies are cautious about making the shift to electric buses.  But make no mistake: these changes are feasible and they are necessary if we are to succeed in preventing the worse consequences of climate change. The proposals before the Air Resources Board are based on extensive analysis and have been thoughtfully developed and deliberated and should be advanced.

There are over 25 million cars on the road in California – the vast majority of which are filled up with gasoline or diesel.  Transitioning to a clean, modern, low-emissions transportation system isn’t going to be easy.  There’s just no “one and done” strategy.  Each of the items before the board next week are substantial on their own and taken together they are a big step forward in reshaping California’s transportation system to deliver the clean air and stable climate California needs, while setting an example the rest of the country and the world can benefit from and follow.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/trump-fuel-efficiency-rollback-is-an-attack-on-science-and-the-public-interest/ Thu, 02 Aug 2018 14:28:38 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=60130 Today, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation released their long-awaited revisions to federal fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards. To no one’s surprise, their preferred alternative is to essentially eliminate the standards—a predetermined outcome that the administration is now trying to defend with bogus analysis.  The current standards were created in collaboration with California and the entire automotive industry and have directly made new cars and trucks cleaner and cheaper to drive. EPA and California Air Resources Board scientists spent years studying the standards, as was required, and concluded last year they are technologically feasible and cost-effective.

Millions of vehicle owners, transportation experts, public health officials and consumer advocates are rightfully outraged.

Thanks to the Clean Air Act, California has a waiver from the EPA to maintain tougher state emission standards despite a national rollback. However, with the current proposal the administration intends to make real its threat to revoke California’s authority to set its own standards. California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra says California will take any step necessary to protect our planet and people and recently, Representative DeSaulnier (CA), introduced a resolution aimed at protecting state authority while Senator Harris (CA) is expected to do the same in the Senate. While threatening to revoke the waiver has led to much consternation, actually revoking the waiver will surely lead to years of litigation and regulatory chaos.

A battle between the Trump Administration and California sounds like it’s made for Hollywood, but it’s also the story the administration is using to distract us. Why? Because it’s easier to paint California as a rogue state of pushy progressives than to defend a policy decision that ignores scientific evidence and relies wholly on industry talking points. The rollback is not just an attack on our state, but on the 12 other states that choose to follow California’s more protective standards and all the other states that have the right to choose to follow California standards if they wish, as Colorado is now moving to do. It’s also more than a fight for authority, it’s an attack on our values and a larger strategy from this administration of pushing science and the public interest aside.

To justify this policy, the agencies are twisting themselves in knots and ignoring their own analysis that show safe, cost-effective technologies exist to continue to improve efficiency, cut emissions, and save consumers money at the pump. They are dragging up tired old arguments that efficiency standards make vehicles less safe, contrary to actual evidence. And the cherry on top: they point out the U.S. is pumping more oil than ever. So the days of needing to conserve energy have passed? Using more oil is not going to make our country stronger or safer, nor is it going to be good for consumers.

Americans like clean cars

Multiple polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans favor clean car standards because no matter what size car or truck they buy, drivers want more efficient, cleaner vehicles. The standards have delivered cleaner cars of every size and class to consumers every year. Additionally, vehicle standards benefit lower income individuals who tend to purchase used cars and for whom gasoline costs are a much larger share of their income.

In the U.S., transportation accounts for about 27 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change – in California it’s nearly 40 percent. The vehicle standards directly curb these carbon emissions. The standards are the most effective climate policy the United States has on the books today and an example of how scientists and industry can work together to create good public policy that protects everyone.

If the standards are rolled back as proposed, the U.S. will pump out an extra 2.2 billion metric tons of global warming emissions and consume 200 billion more gallons of fuel by 2040. If this happens, it will be impossible to achieve our obligations under the Paris climate agreement and significantly damage the planet’s ability to hold global warming to two degrees Celsius. The automakers want a compromise between leaving them alone and a total rollback. But a compromise would mean we significantly veer off the path the country and the planet need to be on to avoid the worst impacts of climate change during our lifetimes.

These rollbacks hurt progress

With the undeniable signs of climate change increasing each season, making consumers use more fossil fuel, even when fuel efficiency technology is available and cost-effective, is at best short-sighted and at worst cynical and destructive.

New cars and trucks aren’t cleaner and more efficient by accident or because of automakers’ goodwill. They are more efficient because forward-looking and scientifically sound public policies require them to be. California and the twelve other states with clean car standards cover more than one third of the new car market. These states have a critical role to play in defending cleaner cars. We must take every legal and legislative step necessary to make sure the Trump administration does not take us backward. But don’t fall for the headlines or the simplistic rhetoric from Washington DC. It’s not just California under attack – it’s science and the public interest that they are targeting.

 

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/auto-standards-rollback-oil-companies-win-everyone-else-loses/ Fri, 27 Jul 2018 20:32:22 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=60093 In April, I blogged about the findings of a new analysis showing how state and federal standards to improve vehicle efficiency and accelerate vehicle electrification could impact jobs and economic growth. The results of the analysis were overwhelmingly positive.  Investing in vehicle technologies to reduce spending at the pump isn’t just good for drivers: the money invested in technology development creates jobs, and savings on fuel get pumped back into the economy.  So what would happen if instead we decide to take a step backwards and not invest in improving vehicle emissions and efficiency as the Trump administration is anticipated to propose any day now? Spoiler alert: Oil companies win and everyone else loses.

We worked with Synapse Energy Economics, Inc, to run economic modeling scenarios assuming the administration moves forward with what appears to be their preferred outcome: freeze federal vehicle standards at 2020 levels and undermine state authority which allows California to set more stringent greenhouse gas and zero emission vehicle standards that other states can opt into.

Compared to the standards on the books today, this rollback would:

• Increase consumer spending on gasoline by about $20 billion in 2025 and nearly $50 billion by 2035
• Economy wide, reduce employment by 60,000 in 2025 and 126,000 in 2035
• Reduce gross domestic product by $8 billion in both 2025 and 2035.


Rolling back federal and state vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards would reduce employment by an estimated 126,000 in 2035 as investments in the auto-sector are reduced and consumers spend more of their income on gasoline

All that of course is in addition to the energy security and pollution impacts from consuming billions of more gallons of gasoline in the coming decades.

Why is rolling back vehicle standards bad for the economy? 

Time and again the analysis of the economics of efficiency have been shown to pay off, especially when it comes to cutting oil use.  Prodding investment in automotive technology leads to job growth. The added costs of the technologies pay for themselves over the first few years of vehicle ownership paving the way for savings over the life of the vehicle, meaning people’s hard-earned money can be spent on things other than filling up their tank.

Rolling back standards, on the other hand, means forking over more money to oil companies in the form of higher gasoline bills. It also means abdicating leadership on automotive technology at a time when other countries, like China, are moving full steam ahead, putting our own automotive industry at risk.

No matter how the administration tries to spin it, it’s hard to see how going backwards on fuel efficiency and emissions standards is going to be good for the average American or our economy as a whole, let alone the auto companies who got this whole thing rolling to begin with.

The oil companies on the other hand?  Well that’s a different story.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/three-revolutions-and-the-future-of-cars-an-interview-with-dr-dan-sperling/ Wed, 11 Jul 2018 14:17:44 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=59753 There are a number of benefits we can expect to see with the introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs), including more convenient transportation. One possible consequence resulting from this would be an increase in the number of miles that people drive, creating more vehicle pollution. To avoid this outcome, experts like Dr. Dan Sperling* from the University of California, Davis, are stressing the need to incentivize low-carbon vehicles (like electric cars) and an increased number of passengers per trip (sometimes called sharing or pooling).

My colleague Abby Figueroa sat down with Dr. Sperling to discuss the future of transportation and his book Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared, and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future.

I extracted some key excerpts from the interview. You can listen to the complete interview here:

Abby Figueroa (AF):  So you have a book that you’ve wrote recently, “Three Revolutions” where you talk about what needs to happen next in transportation. Let’s talk about those three revolutions. Let’s start with the first one, electric vehicles. What’s going on with electric vehicles these days?


Dr. Daniel Sperling, Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, and founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis).

Dan Sperling (DS): Well, electric vehicles is a fascinating topic that I’ve spent many years on. And now as was mentioned earlier, I’m a board member for the California Air Resources Board. So California is fighting with the Trump administration over electric vehicle rules but electric vehicles are here to…not only here to stay, they’re going to dominate. There’s almost no question about it. Every car company in the world has made a major investment. They’ve got the technology, they’ve got the supply chains, they’re really just waiting for policy to really push them and consumers to start buying them. But they’re ready to go. And they’ve got the technology. So it’s really a question of how intent are we as a society in making it happen. Certainly in California, we’re really committed and we’re going to see massive introduction of electric vehicles in the coming years.

[…]

AF: So electric vehicles is the first revolution that needs to happen in transportation so that we can start reaping the benefits of reduced carbon emissions and better safety and less pollution. The second revolution you talk about in your book is automation, self-driving cars. Tell us a little bit about what’s going on in that world right now. How close are we to self-driving cars becoming a reality?

DS: Well, automation also is inevitable. It’s definitely going to happen, there’s almost no question. In this case, not just the automotive industry, but many other related companies, all the high-tech software companies, Silicon Valley companies, Google, are all making huge investments. So automation is definitely going to happen. In fact, our cars already are partly automated. Today, you can get some cars that will drive themselves on freeways right now, the Tesla, Audi, Cadillac, Mercedes.

[…]

AF: The car companies are racing forward with the technology. And the legislators and the cities are racing to try to keep up with the policies. And I think with reason people are excited and some folks are feeling more cautious and wary of it all. What’s the future looking like once we have these automation, these self-driving cars on the roads? How does that change our commute and the way we get around our communities?

DS: Well, the automated vehicles could play out in two different ways. They could be just basically superimposed on our current transportation system. In other words, we now go out and we buy our own car so now we would just go out and buy our own automated car. And so it would be the same except that it would be automated. If that were the case, that is what leads to what we sometimes call, the hell scenario…

AF: The dream or the nightmare that you called it in your book…

DS: In my book I call it, The Nightmare Scenario. And that’s because if you have an automated car, you can spend time in that car doing anything you want. You can eat, sleep, tweet, text, it can be your office. It can be your hotel room. And so you’re going to be much more willing to take long trips because you don’t mind so much being in the car. And it won’t be just being in the car more, cars will be empty part of the time. You go to a meeting, you don’t know quite when you’re gonna get out, you don’t wanna pay for parking, you just have the car circle around the block. You know, we refer to single-occupant vehicles, we’re going to have zero occupant vehicles, you know, zombie cars.

AF: That would be the nightmare scenario. That’s worse than the parking lots full of cars. It’s just cars roaming on the road with no one in them.

DS: So the other way it can play out, and that’s what we call the Heaven scenario, the dream scenario, is that these vehicles are used mostly or even totally as a mobility service, as a pooling service, meaning you take Lyft line or Uber pool and some other micro-transit companies like Via or Chariot. And you automate it and now you get rid of your cars, you don’t own cars anymore. And you just hit that button, car comes, takes you where you wanna go.

AF: Is there someone in the car with us?

DS: There’s no one in the car. And the cost is really cheap because you don’t have the driver, the automation won’t cost that much and the car will get really cheap because it’s being used so efficiently. Right now, our cars, they sit 95% of the time on average. Now we’re gonna use it 12 hours, 15 hours, 18 hours.

AF: Much more efficient.

DS: Much more efficient, so we won’t need as many. And because people are gonna pool in it, you know, there are multiple people in these cars. And these cars might not be cars like we know them now, they could get a little bigger, be more like a van, small vans. You know, probably there’ll be a differentiation of service, some people will want a more exclusive service and pay more, but the point of this is, that if we do have this pooling, that is by far the best strategy we can imagine to create a sustainable transportation system.

Because it’s cheaper, it requires less road space, less parking space, it provides more accessibility to more people, low income, physically disadvantaged, disabled.

[…]

AF: So of the three revolutions, electrification, automation/self-driving, and pooling, which one or which combination of those three are the ones that can have the best impact on our carbon emissions, the best positive climate impact?

DS: Well, if we had all electric vehicles, that would probably be the best for just reducing greenhouse gases, because there you can get, as we decarbonize our electricity system, we’re talking about a 80%, 90% reduction in greenhouse gases.

AF: And transportation is the leading cause or source of emission right now. So that’s the huge…

DS: In California, it’s over 40% of the total and nationally it’s over 30%. That’s right. So electric vehicles, if you just looked at it carbon, then electric vehicles is necessary. It’s kind of like given you have to do that. The rest of this, the pooling combined with the automation can help us reduce vehicle use. So then we can knock off another 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%.

AF: So electrification makes cars cleaner. And automation and pooling takes cars off the road.

DS: Yes.

AF: So those two things combined will help our carbon emissions again.

DS: Yeah, maybe a better way of saying it is it reduces vehicle miles traveled. It reduces vehicle use. So we’ll have less vehicles around because there’s more people in each vehicle.

AF: And they’re being more efficient. The cars aren’t parked 95% of the time.

DS: Exactly.

AF: Got it. So all the three revolutions really are interconnected, if we are to get to this dream scenario?

DS: Yes.

 

* Dr. Daniel Sperling is Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, and founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis). He holds the transportation seat on the California Air Resources Board and served as Chair of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies in 2015-16.  Among his many prizes are the 2013 Blue Planet Prize from the Asahi Glass Foundation Prize for being “a pioneer in opening up new fields of study to create more efficient, low-carbon, and environmentally beneficial transportation systems.” He served twice as lead author for the IPCC (sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize), has testified 7 times to the US Congress, authored or co-authored over 250 technical papers and 12 books, including Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared, and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future (Island Press, 2018), is widely cited in leading newspapers, been interviewed many times on NPR radio, including Science Friday, Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air, and in 2009 was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/good-news-for-colorado-drivers-hickenlooper-moves-to-adopt-state-clean-car-standards/ Thu, 21 Jun 2018 20:00:46 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=59302 This week Governor Hickenlooper ordered his agency staff to move forward in adopting California Clean Car Standards for Colorado – a move that would prevent the harm to Colorado consumers that the anticipated federal rollback of fuel economy and emissions standards is expected to bring.   At the same time, California regulators released an analysis that sheds light on just how much damage a rollback of federal vehicle standards is likely to have if state clean car standards are not kept in place.  What’s at stake?  A lot, including billions of dollars in additional gasoline spending.  And sadly, the Auto Alliance – the trade group representing major auto companies including Ford, GM, and Toyota – has resorted to a misinformation campaign to turn Coloradans against cleaner cars.

Why does Colorado want to join California and the other 12 states that follow California’s emissions rules?

Every state in the nation is benefiting from the availability of cleaner, more efficient vehicles that have been prompted by current emissions and fuel economy standards. In fact, savings on fuel already tops $60 billion.

Current plans by the Trump Administration are to rollback federal standards which are currently aligned with CA and the other states that have adopted California rules.  It has been reported the administration’s proposal, currently under review before public release, would freeze the standards at 2020 levels. This would result in a major increase in climate emissions – UCS estimates an increase of more than ½ billion tons of climate emissions just for vehicles built from 2022 through 2025. By 2030, that would be the equivalent of pollution from 30 coal-fired power plants.  But it would also harm consumers more directly, increasing how much they spend at the pump for years to come.

For example, Coloradans have already saved $550 million in fuel costs thanks to existing standards and by 2030 are expected to save an average of $2,700 per household under current rules.  If EPA and NHTSA freeze the standards in 2020, these expected savings will be slashed.  Governor Hickenlooper understands what’s at stake and the move to have Colorado join 13 other clean car states will ensure Coloradans continue to get clean, more efficient vehicle choices in every class from small cars to big SUVs and pick-up trucks.

California analysis makes it clear – rolling back vehicle standards will hurt consumers and increase pollution

An analysis by California regulators paints a very clear picture that following the Trump Administration’s plan to stall progress on clean cars will be a costly mistake. The analysis examines the pollution and economic impact to California under two scenarios – (1) vehicle standards are frozen at 2021 levels or (2) vehicle standards kept in place through 2025 as currently planned.  The highlights (or low-lights) from their analysis (See Appendix A):

• A rollback of vehicle standards will cost Californians a net $15 billion between 2021 and 2030. That’s because cleaner cars save consumers money, even after paying for the technology to reduce emissions. Weaker standards mean less fuel savings and more money spent on fuel.
• Californians would also suffer from additional air pollution resulting from production and delivery of increased amounts of gasoline, adding another $1 billion in economic costs related to increased premature deaths and health-related damages between 2021 and 2030.
• Adding in the economic value for the actual carbon emission reductions, the rollback adds an additional $1.3 to $5.5 billion in climate damages that would have been avoided with the standards between 2021 and 2030.
• In California, the state has a law requiring a 40% reduction in global warming emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The ARB analysis shows that a rollback would add nearly 57 million metric tons of CO₂ between 2021 and 2030 with about a 20% annual increase in car and truck emissions by 2030. The numbers would be even worse if standards are held at 2020 levels, as reportedly may happen, instead of 2021. Many other states, including Colorado, have set emission reduction goals and are committed to contribute to efforts to avoid the costly consequences of climate change. A rollback will make their efforts that much harder.

While the analysis is specific to California, the same conclusions hold for other states.  Clean car standards are good for consumers and reducing pollution – and freezing them is a gift to the oil industry paid for by drivers at the pump.



Figure 1. Analysis by CA regulators showing emissions from light-duty vehicles under current standards (blue line) and emissions if standards are held at vehicle model year 2021 levels (green line).

Auto Industry Response to Colorado’s support for Clean Cars? Spread misinformation

Immediately responding to Colorado’s decision to ensure its consumers get the benefits of cleaner car technology, the Auto Alliance (representing companies including Ford, GM, and Toyota) and the Colorado Chamber of Commerce rolled out a new campaign attacking clean car standards as un-Coloradan, using the same scare tactics and misinformation harkening back to the days of fighting seatbelts and air bags requirements.

Here’s some fact checking:

• Claims of higher gas prices resulting from clean car standards are completely bogus. Clean car standards require manufacturers to make cleaner cars. These cars reduce fuel use and save consumers money at the pump. Yet the Alliance’s website claims adopting CA standards somehow means Colorado gas prices will be affected.  This is a blatant attempt to use California’s higher than average gas prices as a scare tactic to Colorado consumers and is not based on facts—Coloradans will save money on gas as a result of this action, not spend more on it.
• Strong standards will provide Coloradans more choices, not less. The Alliance claims clean car standards are bad for Colorado consumers and would restrict vehicle choices. The opposite is true. Current standards are driving innovation and giving consumers more fuel efficient choices in every class especially in small SUVs as documented in our recent Automaker Rankings report.  As we’ve pointed out time and again, selling SUVs and trucks doesn’t make it harder to manufacturers to meet clean car standards but it remains a talking point of the Auto Alliance.
• The Zero Emission Vehicle Program does not require automakers to sell 15 percent electric vehicles by 2025. Peddling misinformation about CA’s Zero Emission Vehicle program trying to make the case it is unreasonable is standard fare for the Auto Alliance. In fact, they know quite well that updated regulatory analysis from 2017 shows the program requires plug-in hybrid, battery electric or fuel cell vehicles to be about 7-8% of new sales by 2025 in California and slightly less in other states that have adopted CA’s program. CA is already at 5 percent new vehicle sales. Governor Hickenlooper’s announcement doesn’t include the California electric vehicle requirements, but even if it did, characterizing the requirement as 15 percent is a clear mischaracterization of what the program requires.

 

The Trump Administration, prompted by the automakers, has decided to throw out a well-coordinated national program for vehicle emissions and fuel efficiency —a move that is bad for consumers and moves the auto industry backward.  Initiation of lawsuits to prevent the rollback and Colorado’s recent announcement to join the clean car states clearly demonstrate that states recognize the myriad benefits to their residents from these standards.  They should not be deterred by tired auto industry arguments.

 

 

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/regulators-should-think-twice-before-handing-out-pollution-credits-for-self-driving-cars/ Thu, 03 May 2018 19:04:32 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=58411 A new report out by Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) suggests that automakers should get credits towards meeting emission and fuel economy standards for connected and automated vehicles (AVs) and related advanced driver assist systems—technologies that may or may not save any fuel. Doing so would not only increase pollution and fuel use, but would seriously undermine the integrity and enforceability of regulations that have delivered enormous benefits to our environment, our pocketbooks, and our national security.  The tens of thousands of traffic related fatalities every year in the U.S. demands that automakers and regulators must continue to make our cars safer.  But trying to encourage greater deployment of safety technologies by undermining pollution standards is the wrong approach.

Here’s why regulators should reject giving emissions credits to manufacturers for deploying safety and self-driving technologies.

Including emissions credits for safety and self-driving technologies in 2022-2025 vehicle standards would be a windfall for automakers, resulting in less deployment of proven efficiency technologies and more pollution.

There are more questions than answers about the potential impacts of various safety technologies and self-driving capabilities on vehicle and overall transportation system emissions, which I’ll get into more below.  But for now, let’s just take a big leap of faith and assume that some safety technologies actually do lower an individual vehicle’s emissions.

One example is adaptive cruise control.  This technology automatically adapts a vehicle’s speed to keep a safe distance from a vehicle ahead and theoretically could perform more efficiently than a human driver.  It is widely available and featured on vehicles like the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Ford Fusion.  One study examined this technology and found changes in efficiency could range from +3 to -5 percent during various types of driving. While there is some evidence that under certain conditions there might be a slight fuel economy benefit from this technology when it is in use, that same evidence indicates that increased fuel use and emissions are also possible.

In another recent study of self-driving cars, researchers found that while eco-driving capabilities could potentially provide savings, the increase in electric power demand, added weight, and aerodynamic impacts of sensors and computers would increase fuel use and emissions.  Both of these examples demonstrate the importance of testing and verifying any assumed change in emissions from the deployment of safety and self-driving technology as emissions reductions are anything but certain.

But even if credible testing and data were available, giving off-cycle credits for this technology within existing standards would be a giveaway to the auto industry.

Why? Adaptive cruise control is already being deployed on millions of cars – 1 in 5 new vehicles produced for the US market in model year 2017 were equipped with adaptive cruise control. Automatic emergency braking is another example, where automakers have already made commitments to make it standard on nearly all cars by 2022. Giving credits for these technologies would be a windfall for manufacturers and result in less deployment of proven fuel efficiency technologies.

The ICCT also identified this issue of providing credits for tech deployment that is already occurring in their review of the current off-cycle credit program and concluded that the program greatly reduces the deployment of other efficiency technology. They also identified the lack of empirical evidence to validate claimed fuel economy and emissions benefits from several technologies already included in the program as another big problem. And currently there is little empirical data to validate any efficiency benefits of safety and self-driving technologies.

Providing credits for emissions and fuel consumption impacts that are difficult to measure and not directly related to a vehicle – like possible impacts on traffic congestion—would increase pollution and undermine the standards.

Expanding the off-cycle program for safety technologies that might directly impact a vehicle’s emissions is just the tip of the iceberg.   The off-cycle credit program, like the vehicle standards in general, is limited to emissions directly related to the performance of a vehicle. But some automakers, and SAFE, are interested in allowing credits based on potential changes in emissions from the transportation system as whole. For example, automakers could earn credits toward compliance with vehicle standards for some future changes in traffic congestion that might result from the deployment of improved vehicle safety technologies. This would be a major change to the per-vehicle basis of the fuel economy regulations that were established in the 1970’s.

There are several serious problems with including speculative, indirect emissions impacts in existing vehicle standards.

1. Providing credits for emissions reductions that may or may not ever happen in the future will increase pollution in the short term and may never result in emission reductions in the long term

We only need to look back at the flex fuel vehicle (FFV) loophole to find an example of this kind of failed policy. Automakers were given fuel economy credits for selling cars capable of running on fuel that is 85 percent ethanol (known as E85), under the theory that this would help drive E85 to market and we would use less oil. Several automakers used it as a compliance strategy and avoided investing in other fuel efficiency technologies. But the cars almost never actually used E85, which means instead of getting more efficient vehicles, we got more oil use. The increased fuel consumption resulting from the FFV loophole is estimated to be in the billions of gallons.

Crediting future emissions reductions based on hopes and dreams has been tried before and doesn’t work.

2. Ignoring the potential negative impacts from self-driving technologies is a HUGE problem.

Self-driving cars have the potential for both positive AND negative impacts on pollution and energy use.

The biggest X-factor is how drivers will respond to these new technologies, which make vehicles safer, but also makes them easier to drive (or not drive at all as the case may be). A paper by Wadud et. al examined a range of direct and indirect impacts self-driving vehicles could potentially have on emissions.  And there are several possibilities, some of which could reduce emissions while others could increase emissions dramatically (see figure).   Increased emissions could result from higher highways speeds enabled by increased vehicle safety, increased vehicle size or features as drivers expect more features in their vehicles while their car drives them around, and most importantly, increases in the amount of vehicle travel overall.  Combined, these effects could increase emissions by more than 100% according to the study.



Automated vehicles could have both positive and negative impacts on energy consumption and emissions. Wadud et al.

We’ve already experienced increased highway speeds as vehicles have become safer with seatbelts, air bags and a host of other safety technologies.  And it’s not hard to imagine increases in vehicle miles traveled as cars take over the task of driving so we can do other things.  Just think about for a minute—what different choices might you make if you didn’t have to drive your own car?  Living farther from work or taking that extra trip during Friday rush hour might not seem so bad anymore when you can read a book or watch a movie while your car chauffeurs you to wherever you want to go.

Based on the current scientific literature, SAFE’s estimate of potential efficiency improvements from automated vehicles is misleading at best. Their analysis ignores any possible disbenefits, like increased vehicle travel, even while specifically acknowledging AVs “can also give drivers one thing of tremendous value to most Americans – an increase in personal or productive time”. The analysis also uses the upper range of efficiency benefits from a handful of studies estimated over limited driving situations, and inappropriately applies them to all driving.  The conclusion that a handful of safety technologies could reduce emissions 18-25%  across the entire vehicle fleet is not supported by current evidence, ignores any other effects of self-driving cars, and is not a sound basis for policymaking decisions.

My point isn’t that we should prevent self-driving technology and the many potential benefits it could deliver if done responsibly.

But vehicle standards aimed at reducing emissions and fuel consumption shouldn’t include credits for potential positive changes to transportation system emissions while ignoring the negative ones.

3. Finally, regulatory enforceability and accountability—the key to the success of today’s vehicle standards—would be severely undermined

The effectiveness of vehicle standards, any standards for that matter, is having effective enforcement which ensures regulated entities are all participating on a level playing field and that the actual benefits of the standards are realized.  We’ve seen the importance of enforcement over the decades as automakers have been held accountable for the performance of their products. Think ‘VW diesel scandal’ for one, and the numerous examples of erroneous fuel economy labels (Ford and Hyundai-Kia to name just two). These enforcement actions have one important thing in common: regulators were able to perform tests on the vehicles to determine if they were performing as the automakers claimed, and demonstrate that they were not.

Current vehicle standards are robust because they are predicated on direct emissions and fuel savings benefits that are verifiable on a vehicle level. An automaker makes a car, it’s tested, and they are held accountable for the results. How might a regulator, or an automaker, test and verify the congestion impacts of an individual Cadillac STS with Super Cruise?

Providing credits to automakers for emission reduction benefits that cannot be verified or attributed to an individual manufacturer, nevermind an individual vehicle make or model would be a massive change in approach to the program introduced through a mechanism – the off-cycle credit provisions – which was never intended to be more than small part of automaker compliance.

Where’s our insurance policy?

SAFE makes the case that giving away credits to automakers now, even without proof that these technologies reduce fuel use and emissions, is worth it because it would allow EPA and NHTSA to run a research program to understand the impacts on fuel economy of self-driving technology. But why should we accept increased pollution for collecting information? A better path forward for regulators is to indicate their intention to consider the direct vehicle emissions and fuel economy impacts of safety and self-driving technology in setting post-2025 vehicle standards and implement a testing program now to collect the necessary data to see whether giving credits for these technologies is appropriate. This would motivate automakers to do their own testing and to work with EPA and NHTSA to develop appropriate test procedures for ensuring the claimed benefits are actually occurring.

If safety and self-driving technology off-cycle credits are a proposed solution to the current impasse over 2022-2025 vehicle standards between federal regulators, the auto industry, and California, then we all need to be clear about the costs. They would provide windfall credits to auto companies for something they are already doing, while stalling deployment of proven efficiency technologies and increasing emissions.  If indirect changes in transportation system emissions and fuel consumption are included, such as some theoretical impacts on congestion sometime in the future that may or may not happen, the move would risk undermining the foundation of the standards themselves.

We should not be forced to make a choice between improving vehicle safety and reducing emissions. We need to protect the public from vehicle crashes and protect the public from pollution. If there is proven safety technology that is saving lives, automakers should deploy it and safety regulators should require it. But moving from a regulatory structure that is built on verifiable and enforceable emission reductions to one that is based on speculation and indirect impacts is a dangerous move that should be avoided.

 

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/newsflash-better-fuel-efficiency-is-good-for-jobs/ Wed, 04 Apr 2018 14:51:48 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=57827 For all the rhetoric coming from the administration around proposed rollbacks to the EPA’s vehicle emission standards, one would think that existing standards are somehow inflicting damage on our economy.  EPA administrator Scott Pruitt even gave a shout out to the “Jobs” signs at the event where he announced the EPA will be rolling back the standards.  But he’s got it all wrong. Keeping the standards strong is the best way to help grow jobs and support our economy.  Investing in technology advancement in the auto industry and saving consumers money on fuel – both outcomes of clean car standards – help to create jobs and make our economy stronger.


“I love these signs, particularly the ones that say ‘Jobs’.” EPA Administrator Pruitt, April 3, 2018 in announcing rollbacks to federal vehicle emission standards. Analysis by Synapse Energy Economics shows that keeping emissions and efficiency standards strong will create jobs.

A new analysis by Synapse Energy Economics examined the existing state and federal clean car standards currently on the books through 2025 to estimate their impact on US jobs and the US economy.  They found clean car standards will:

• Add more than 100,000 jobs in 2025 with that number increasing to more than 250,000 in 2035.
• Increase US gross domestic product by more than $13 billion in 2025 and more than $16 billion in 2035.
• Save consumers nearly $40 billion in annual fuel costs by 2025 and $90 billion by 2035


For details, visit see our fact sheet: Cleaner Cars Are Good for Jobs.

Why the good news?

So wait a minute.  Doesn’t it cost money to make cars more efficient and less polluting?  Yes.  But just like that more efficient refrigerator might cost a little extra upfront, the lower operating costs more than make up for it, leaving more money in your pocket to spend how you like.

It turns out, savings from improved fuel efficiency adds up to billions of dollars every year. To date, Americans have already saved more than $57 billion dollars at the pump since 2010 because of clean car standards. And spending those savings on things other than gasoline is a whole lot better for our economy. (This is old news – I wrote about this in 2011).

In addition, the standards drive the auto industry to innovate. That means more R&D, manufacturing and engineering, creating jobs throughout the supply chain.

What did Indiana University get wrong?

In the administration’s final determination notice to revise the standards, they cite a study by Indiana University, paid for by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which concluded that clean car standards would cause near-term job losses, but be positive in the long-run.  However, Synapse’s analysis found both short-term and long-term economic benefits.  Why the difference?

Indiana University study’s macro-economic modeling assumes all consumers use cash to purchase their vehicle—in fact, only 30 percent do so—and assumes consumers do not factor fuel economy into their vehicle purchasing decisions, even though evidence shows consumers value fuel economy as well as price when purchasing a vehicle. These erroneous assumptions led to erroneous results that just don’t hold up.

Bottom line: Federal and state clean car standards drive the deployment of more fuel-efficient vehicles. Developing and building these vehicles creates thousands of new jobs, while the money consumers save on fuel can be spent on other goods and services, boosting the economy overall.

The administration’s actions to weaken standards will hurt US jobs and the US auto industry, despite what their signs say and how much Administrator Pruitt loves them (starting at minute 2:33).

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/governor-brown-aims-to-boost-californias-leadership-on-electric-cars/ Tue, 30 Jan 2018 21:43:54 +0000 https://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=56365 California has long been seen a leader on EVs of all kinds – plug-in hybrids, battery electric and fuel cell vehicles. The state established the first requirements for zero emission vehicles in 1990 and has been pushing the industry forward ever since. Governor Brown’s executive order last week gives another jolt to EV deployment in the state with a call for $2.5 billion in investments in infrastructure and consumer incentives over the next 8 years with the aim of reaching 5 million zero emissions vehicles by 2030 and the build out of 250,000 charging stations and 200 hydrogen refueling stations by 2025. The legislature will weigh in over the coming months about spending decisions including committing $200 million/year from Cap and Trade revenue for vehicle incentives.  Reaching mass market adoption of EVs means making them affordable and convenient for less affluent drivers and addressing the needs of those without dedicated off-street parking. The Governor’s proposed investment plan faces this challenge head on.

Here are 4 reasons why Governor Brown’s Executive Order is important.

(1) California – and the rest of the world – can’t tackle climate change without a revolution in the transportation sector



California Climate Emissions. Source: 2015 data reported in California’s 2017 Climate Change Scoping Plan, November 2017.

Transportation accounts for nearly 40% of California’s climate emissions. And that’s not including the emissions from producing gasoline and diesel from crude oil.  Including those sources pushes transportation to about half of all global warming emissions in the state.

Nationally, while transportation is a lower share of overall emissions than in CA, the trend in emissions is not encouraging.  Transportation recently overtook the electricity sector as the largest source of CO₂ emissions in the country.



Source: EIA Monthly Energy Report (12 month total)

(2) Electric vehicles are cleaner than gasoline vehicles today, and they will only get cleaner

Making our gasoline cars cleaner is absolutely critical to getting us on track toward our climate goals – which is why UCS is doing everything we can to protect the important federal global warming emission and fuel economy standards currently on the books (If these are important to you too – tell your automaker to support strong standards).  But as we look ahead, electric vehicles will become more and more important to achieve deep emission reductions and transition away from oil.

This map shows how EVs compare to gasoline vehicles today on global warming emissions.  For example, in California, a gasoline vehicle would have to achieve a fuel economy rating of 95 mpg to have the same emissions as an electric vehicle charged on California’s electricity grid.  As the grid gets cleaner with more solar and wind power and less coal and natural gas  – so will EVs.



Fuel economy rating a gasoline vehicle would need to achieve to have similar emissions to an EV, based on electricity grid emissions data from 2014. For more about this map, see my colleague David Reichmuth’s blog post.

(3) California needs millions of EVs on the road to meet our 2030 climate targets

California committed to cutting its global warming emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 with the passage of Senate Bill 32. As noted above, with transportation emissions nearly 50% of the state’s total that means major progress is needed in reducing emissions from our cars and trucks.  Modeling from state regulators shows that even with continued steady progress in reducing emissions from new gasoline vehicles, at least 4.2 million zero emission vehicles (plug-in hybrid, battery electric and fuel cell vehicles) would need to be deployed in CA to meet climate and air quality goals.



Source: ARB Mobile Source Strategy Cleaner Technologies and Fuels Scenario (p. 66). Note: This is an illustrative scenario of the magnitude of adoption needed for plug-in hybrid, battery electric, and fuel cell vehicles.

This is just one scenario based on assumptions across all different sectors of the economy. Achieving Governor Brown’s new goal of 5 million zero emission vehicles by 2030 would help ensure California is achieving the state’s economy wide goals, while acting as a catalyst for accelerating EV adoption outside of the state as California leads by example.

(4) These investments target the most important barriers to owning an EV: upfront costs and access to charging

EV sales in California account for roughly half of all sales in the US. This is due to a combination of factors including the regulatory and financial incentives in place today.  But keeping up that momentum over the next decade to reach the 5 million vehicle mark means average new EV sales need to average about a 19 percent year over year growth (see figure).  For comparison, year over year sales growth between  2016 and 2017 was about 24%.

To make this happen, EVs need to become more affordable to more people and owners need a place to plug-in.

On the first measure, affordability, the good news is that EVs are cheaper to fuel, saving an average of $800 on fuel costs compared to a gasoline vehicle and prices of EVs are continuing to fall.  EVs are likely to reach price parity with gasoline vehicles sometime in the next decade.  But EVs still cost more than comparable gasoline vehicles today, so consumer incentives are critically important for accelerating their adoption.

Cap and trade funds have provided the bulk of the incentive funds to date for consumer rebates in CA, but the program has been subject to waitlists and uncertainty in the annual budget appropriations process.  A commitment by the Legislature and Governor of at least $200 million per year for rebates would go along way towards creating greater stability for the program and ensure support during a critical time of the market.

Charging infrastructure is also a must.  Single family home owners often have a place to park and plug in, but those in condos and apartments often face a more difficult challenge. Brown’s proposed investments in infrastructure through the California Energy Commission would provide steady investment over the next 8 years and supplement the proposed utility investments and VW settlement funds being directed towards building a charging network that can support 5 million vehicles.

Importantly, the executive order also calls for actions to increase investment in low-income and disadvantaged communities.  These communities often suffer the most from air pollution and deploying EVs in these communities is an important priority for reducing emissions where it is needed most and where it will have the biggest impact. Higher vehicle rebate amounts that exist for lower income households helps ensure more people can take advantage of the direct benefits of owning an EV while current income limits on rebate eligibility help stretch the dollars where they are need most.  Additional cap and trade funded programs to increase EV ownership in disadvantaged communities such as vehicle replacement programs and electric car sharing projects provide addition opportunities for deploying EVs more widely across all communities in the state.

]]> https://blog.ucs.org/don-anair/why-going-100-electric-in-california-isnt-as-crazy-as-it-might-seem/ Tue, 03 Oct 2017 16:52:47 +0000 http://blog.ucsusa.org/?p=54128 California’s top air pollution regulator, Mary Nichols, made headlines last week after making comments to a Bloomberg reporter about the possibility of banning gasoline cars in California.  Shortly after that, California Assembly member Phil Ting announced he would introduce state legislation to do just that. Skeptics may raise their eyebrows, but if California is going to meet its long term climate and air quality goals then nearly all future cars and trucks must be powered by renewable electricity and hydrogen. The good news is the state is already on this path.

Our health and our climate depends on vehicle electrification

It’s no secret that widespread vehicle electrification is needed to meet California’s climate and air quality goals. In 1990, the first Zero Emission Vehicle program was adopted – an acknowledgment that vehicles with zero tailpipe emissions were necessary to ensure healthy air in a state with a growing population and a whole lot of cars.

Climate change has only added to the importance of vehicle electrification, which takes advantage of the efficiency of electric motors and the ability to power vehicles with renewable electricity or hydrogen (fuel cell vehicles have an electric motor and zero tailpipe emissions similar to battery electric cars).

The state’s recent assessment of vehicle technologies needed to meet our climate and air quality goals shows the importance of widespread vehicle electrification, suggesting that all sales of new cars should be electric by 2050 (including plug-in hybrids or PHEVs).  A national assessment, Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States, and a California assessment, also point out a large-scale transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is needed to achieve the level of emission reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change.

Figure 1: From a presentation by staff to the Air Resources Board in March 2017 showing that by 2050 the majority of cars on the road – and all of new car sales – are powered by electric motors.

Banning gasoline and diesel gains popularity  

In the wake of VW’s Dieselgate, and with the impacts of climate change becoming more and more apparent, banning the sale of internal combustion vehicles is becoming a popular policy choice around the world, with France, Britain, India and China all making big splashes with recent commitments to eliminate them at some point in the future.

With these strong commitments gathering steam, someone might ask if California is somehow losing its leadership on EVs.  California isn’t losing its leadership, it’s starting to share it with many more parts of the globe.  This is great news, as increased global demand for EVs will help drive down technology costs for everyone and help automakers recoup their investments in EV technology faster.

But is going to 100% electric vehicles practical? It might be hard to imagine a time when every car at your local dealership will be electric. But there are reasons to be bullish on the future of EVs. Battery prices are dropping with estimates that EVs could have comparable costs to gasoline vehicles sometime in the 2020s. And recent announcements by major manufacturers like Ford, GM, Volvo, VW and others about expanding electric vehicle line-ups over the next 5 years indicates the industry is betting on growth opportunities.

Figure 2: As recently noted in a blog by my colleague David Reichmuth,  battery costs are declining and approaching the point where EVs achieve cost parity ($125-150 per kWh).

California is taking the right steps to making electric cars an option for more and more drivers

In addition, California is implementing policies to support the deployment of EVs.  There’s a long list, but some of the most critical are direct consumer rebates, incentives targeting low- and moderate-income households, utility investments to support the deployment of EV charging infrastructure, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and the Zero Emission Vehicle program, which requires automakers to bring EVs to market. Meanwhile, California’s relatively clean electricity grid means that driving an EV results in global warming emissions equivalent to a 95 mile-per-gallon gasoline car. As California increases its reliance on electricity from renewable sources, emissions will continue to decline.

Long-term goals must be matched with near-term action

Adopting a ban on gasoline and diesel cars would certainly send a strong long-term signal that powering electric vehicles with clean energy is our ultimate destination. It could focus policy makers’ and regulators’ efforts on supporting the transition and give automakers, charging companies, utilities, and entrepreneurs a vision and long-term target for the future to guide their investments.

However, it’s the near-term efforts to make EVs more accessible to all Californians that will accelerate the transition. That means expanding current programs targeted toward individuals and businesses who buy or use new and used cars and increasing access to charging. And it also means supporting electrification for those who rely on other modes of transportation too (see my colleague Jimmy’s blog on electric buses).

A future without internal combustion engine cars is consistent with a future of clean air and minimizing climate impacts. Ultimately, for a transition to a clean, electric transportation system to succeed, the system needs to be better than the one we have today. And it’s the policies we implement today that will drive the investments needed to reach a tipping point, a point where choosing the EV is a no brainer for whomever is shopping for a car.

 

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