Last Friday, at the Newseum in Washington D.C., EEI hosted a celebration of 1 Million EVs on U.S. Roads. Nearly thirty speakers discussed this accomplishment and the challenges ahead. Including from Congress, GM, BMW, Nissan, Walmart, NASUCA, the Michigan PSC, NRDC, Sierra Club, EPRI and utilities.
You weren’t there? It’s ok. The PUF team was. Here’s a taste, three brief video excerpts:
I. Terry Sobolewski, Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer, National Grid
“Some of the nation's barriers to [EV] adoption, we have to address these barriers to adoption. I think at the top of the list in my mind are customers’ awareness of and understanding of what the charging options look like.
That spills over into a few aspects of their purchasing decision. Certainly it's about whether or not that solution works for their lifestyle. Can they get to and from work? Can they get to and from a family location?
Anne [Pramaggiore, of Exelon] and I were chatting. For us, we travel to all corners of our territory – and that’s sometimes a couple hundred mile trip to get to rural areas – if that [EV charging] infrastructure's not there, or if we're not aware of infrastructure that is there, that's a huge impediment to our purchasing decision.
It also spills into the price side of this, the total cost of ownership. I think it's been so easy and such a clear paradigm for us for so long in internal combustion engines. We all know what the cost of fuel is anywhere from Boston to D.C. I can make that road trip without much of a thought.
But when you move into electric vehicles, the pricing regimes, the way in which things are billed and collected, these become real question marks. I think we have to be able to provide clear answers to customers on those fronts for them to get over these hurdles.”
II. Anne Pramaggiore, Senior Executive Vice President and CEO of Exelon Utilities, Exelon
“Not just driving for more charging stations and private usage. But how can we incent public transit conversion? One of the things that we have going in D.C. is a proposal for a public transit special rate, electric rate.
So those are some of the things we're thinking about, really driving that public transit adoption rate. Particularly because of our focus in urban areas.”
III. Jill Anderson, Vice President, Customer Programs and Services, Southern California Edison
“Right now, [an EV model] being only one model in a whole portfolio of [car buying] options.
And the complexity that goes into buying an electric vehicle. Because there's certain incentives that are at the state level. There's the federal incentives that is different depending on the model.
Now add manufacturer as the federal incentive starts to step down. Just figuring out, we do at-home charging rebates. So if you install a charger at home, you can get a rebate from Edison of up to fifteen hundred dollars.
But the dealerships don't have all of that information. So it's really left to the potential buyer to piece all of that together.
And it's complicated. Because if you're at a different income level, you qualify for different incentives.
So [we’re] figuring out how we can help make that as seamless as possible. One thing that we're looking at in California is to do point-of-purchase rebates.
Instead of once you buy it, get your license plate, and get your registration, then you apply for a rebate. Can we just get the rebate out, right at the point where they're buying the car?”