https://earthjustice.org/blog/2019-april/want-people-to-drive-electric-give-them-workplace-chargers
[images and links in online article]
Want People to Drive Electric? Give Them Workplace Chargers
The California Public Utilities Commission should approve a proposal to
deploy more charging infrastructure at workplaces, apartment buildings,
and public places.
By Sara Gersen | April 22, 2019
When I was in the market for a new car two years ago, I was committed to
buying an electric vehicle because I work every day as an attorney with
Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign to fight pollution from vehicles
and energy generation. But environmental concerns wouldn’t be enough to
convince my husband, Joe, how we should make our family’s biggest-ever
investment. Plus, as renters, our ability to charge an electric car at
home is a bit precarious.
Luckily, I was able to get Joe comfortable purchasing our Chevrolet Volt
because he works at a company that just installed vehicle chargers
through a Southern California Edison pilot program.
We’re not alone—commuters with access to workplace chargers are six
times more likely to drive electric vehicles, according to the U.S.
Department of Energy.
The California Public Utilities Commission is now considering a proposal
from Southern California Edison to deploy more charging infrastructure
at workplaces, apartment buildings, and public places. Edison’s proposed
additional investments could encourage more Californians to choose an
electrified ride.
Joe works at HRL Laboratories, where 46 of the company’s 540 employees
are now driving electric. To understand why so many HRL employees are
taking advantage of EV chargers and glean lessons for other employers
and policymakers, I interviewed three electric car drivers.
The Number Cruncher: Shanying
Shanying Cui is a research scientist at HRL whose decision to drive an
electric car was primarily economic. But Shanying never would have done
the math to discover how much money she could save on fuel and
maintenance if it hadn’t been for HRL’s charging stations. “Seeing other
people charging in the parking lot is what made me realize an electric
car was a possibility for me,” Shanying explained. Her experience
leasing a Volt has been so positive that she says, “I tell everyone how
great EVs are, how much money you can save, and how convenient it is to
never go to a gas station.” Shanying recently sat down with a colleague
to show him how to calculate how much he could save on fuel with an
electric vehicle. Now that the lease is ending on Shanying’s Volt, she
intends to purchase an all-electric model.
The Super Commuter: Stephanie
Stephanie Tiffany, HRL’s senior librarian, bought her first electric
vehicle in 2013, shortly after HRL installed its first chargers. She
wanted to buy a plug-in hybrid for environmental reasons, but says HRL’s
chargers are the reason she pulled the trigger on purchasing a Ford
C-Max. Stephanie’s drive to work is 42 miles—farther than the car’s
electric range. Charging at work was key because it doubled the number
of miles she could drive on electricity. With Stephanie’s encouragement,
a colleague in her carpool followed her lead and bought a C-Max too.
Now, Stephanie is in the market to purchase her first all-electric car.
The Renter: Ari
Ari Weinstein, another HRL research scientist, says that “having
dependable charging at work let me buy a plug-in hybrid car without
hesitating.” To charge at the home Ari rents, he would need to negotiate
a payment system with his landlord, and run a slow charging cord through
a window. Ari wanted to buy an electric vehicle to reduce his carbon
footprint, take advantage of lower repair costs and federal incentives,
and have the fastest car he’s ever driven. Since purchasing a Volt, Ari
frequently tells people that electric vehicles are “really, really
great” and corrects misconceptions about electric cars being slow or bad
for the environment. Ari explained that “the concept of where our
electricity comes from is very muddy for most people,” so he points
friends to the California Independent System Operator’s real-time data
on our power supply and says “it blows their minds to see how much of
our power comes from renewables when I’m charging at work.”
Lessons for Policymakers
While each person’s story is unique, there are several things the
workers I spoke with had in common. Everyone credited the workplace
charging stations with their decision to go electric. Also, when these
workers got their first electric vehicles, their only acquaintances with
electric vehicles were HRL colleagues. Once they began driving an
electric vehicle, the HRL workers encouraged their colleagues to do the
same, and any subsequent car purchases in their families were also electric.
These stories suggest that workplace chargers are spurring people to
choose electric cars, and not just serving people who would have bought
electric cars anyway. Our experiences illustrate the California Energy
Commission’s findings that, “when residents of multifamily housing are
unable to charge at home, having an available site to charge at work or
access to other public locations can serve as an alternative. If located
far from home, workplace and public charging can also help [battery
electric vehicle] owners extend their range and [plug-in hybrid electric
vehicle] owners increase their electric miles driven.”
As prices of electric vehicles decline—with analysts predicting electric
cars will be cheaper than their gas-burning counterparts by the
mid-2020s—it becomes imperative that all Californians have access to
vehicle charging. The opportunity to drive an electric car shouldn’t be
limited to people who own a home with a garage. Workplace charging is
one key element of democratizing access to electric cars, and we need to
move aggressively if we are going to meet this challenge.
Electric utilities have a big role to play. According to HRL, support
from Southern California Edison is the “only reason” it ultimately
increased its number of installed EV chargers to 21.
The California Public Utilities Commission should approve large-scale
investments in charging infrastructure, accelerating the transition to
electric vehicles to help meet California’s ambitious climate goals and
cut pollution in a region with some of the nation’s worst air quality.
Rapid investments in workplace charging are critical to helping
consumers ditch their gas guzzlers for vehicles that won’t cook the planet.
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