How feasible are electric vehicles in rural America?

Tesla Superchargers, Mount Shasta, California
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2021

The headline for Mike Seely's recent New York Times piece asserts that "Rural America's Roads Might Resemble Cuba's in 20 Years."  The crux of the story is, "As the nation shifts to electric vehicles, picture well-kept but long discontinued gas-powered pickups, especially in areas where charging stations may be sparse."  An excerpt follows:  

As the world’s cars become electric, it might be logical to presume that the mechanical wizardry required to repair a classic internal-combustion car within two hours will become a deeply discounted skill. After all, President Biden has announced that he would like to see electric vehicles account for 50 percent of all new U.S. car sales by 2030.  Fully electric vehicles currently account for about 2 percent of new car sales in the United States.

While the cause won’t be trade embargoes but rather this coming generational shift to electric cars, experts say it’s possible that American roads could resemble Cuba for a spell, with older cars running on gasoline engines kept in circulation long after they ordinarily would have been traded in for another fuel-burning model.

“We think there will be Cuba, especially in the rural areas of the U.S.,” said Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst for Cox Automotive. Battery advancements will be crucial to making progress on the number of electric cars on the road, she added. “Range is really important to people in faraway places; you have to drive long distances just to get to the grocery store,” Ms. Krebs said.

This recent Washington Monthly piece by Matthew Metz and Janelle London takes up another angle on adoption of electric vehicles:  how to structure the tax incentives to get more folks--especially folks who drive more--into electric vehicles.  The subhead sums things up, "Bigger rewards to gasoline 'superusers' will reduce carbon emissions more quickly.  Paradoxically, it may also diminish economic inequality."  Here is an excerpt:

Like so many things in the U.S., gasoline consumption in the U.S. by cars and light trucks is distributed unequally. According to our research, the drivers in the top 10 percent of gasoline consumption, whom we call “gasoline superusers,” each burn upward of 1,000 gallons of gasoline per year. Collectively they consume 32 percent of all gasoline. The top 20 percent of drivers burn about half of all gasoline.

Based on National Highway Travel Survey data, we know that about 64 percent of gasoline superusers drive pickup trucks and SUVs, compared to 41 percent of other drivers. Superusers drive about 30,000 miles a year, nearly three times the average for other drivers, and they’re more likely than other drivers to live in rural places. Among metro areas, Houston, Detroit, and St. Louis have the highest concentration of superusers. In the Washington, D.C. metro area, 6.6 percent of drivers are superusers, and collectively they burn 22 percent of the region’s gasoline.

Heavy gas mileage takes a toll on your checkbook. Superusers spend on average 8 percent of their household income on gasoline and up to 20 percent for moderate- and lower-income superusers. But purchase incentives for electric vehicles don’t take gasoline usage into account. Indeed, it’s the lowest-mileage, higher-income drivers who are most likely to avail themselves of such incentives. The median household income of a Prius owner was estimated a few years ago by J.D. Power to be $108,283.

The poorer you are, the less likely you are to own an electric vehicle. Did we mention that cars are expensive?

The obvious solution is a redistribution of electric vehicle incentives toward superusers. An EV incentive of $10 per gallon of past annual average gasoline use would bestow $15,000 on a pickup truck driver burning 1,500 gallons a year. That’s a meaningful incentive for pickup and SUV drivers to buy electric versions of those vehicles now coming on the market.

All of this important analysis reminds me of the related struggle to find charging stations in rural areas.  A student wrote a blog post about this in her hometown, Ukiah, California, a few years ago.  I noticed when I was planning a trip home from Mount Shasta this past weekend that I could not reliably get to all of the places I wanted to go off I-5 (where charging stations are reasonably plentiful).  In particular, I was frustrated that I could not reliably drive home via Plumas and Lassen counties because the only charging stations in the Lassen County seat, Susanville, are not superchargers.  Indeed, it looked as if only patrons of two specific Susanville motels/hotels are permitted to use their so-called destination chargers, and I had no plan to stay at either.  (Destination chargers are like the ones Tesla owners have at their homes; they take hours to full charge a vehicle, whereas superchargers can do so in half an hour).  Adding to my aggravation and uncertainty was the fact that some maps showed a tranche of superchargers at a Susanville casino, but I ultimately concluded it had not yet been built, but was merely at the planning stage.  So, rather than travel home via these northern Sierra and high desert counties, where I wanted to survey the Dixie Fire damage, I just came home via I-5.  

Certainly, I can imagine living and working in Plumas or Lassen County and not being willing to go electric because of the high cost of electric vehicles and the relative lack of charging infrastructure.  These are problems that must be solved if widespread adoption of electric vehicles in rural places is to occur.  

All of this reminds me that one of the upcoming talks in the Rural Reconciliation series will be about transportation. Greg Shill of the University of Iowa will speak on that topic on January 27, 2022.