Planes, trains, and climate change is Mashable's ongoing series about the dramatic impacts transportation has on the planet’s warming, and our lives.
There are some 111,000 gas stations in the United States. One particular station in Texas boasts 120 gas pumps. Those pumps are probably put to good use, because Americans today are gulping fuel like never before: In 2018, the U.S. burned through 147 billion gallons of gasoline — its highest amount ever.
This prodigious gas consumption has bad consequences for the planet's relentlessly warming climate, because the transportation sector is the leading contributor of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
To combat these emissions, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Congressman Andy Levin (both Democrats) introduced the politically ambitious Electric Vehicle (EV) Freedom Act last Thursday, which intends to create an unprecedented, nationwide system of powerful, fast-charging stations. The goal is to make charging an electric car as easy as filling up a tank of gas. Americans have been slow to adopt electric vehicles because of anxieties about how far cars can travel before running low on power. Electric vehicles only make up about 1.8 percent of cars purchased in the U.S. today.
The legislation invites compelling questions about what such a transformative highway charging system would look like, and where the chargers would be built.
"A bill like this is extremely important," said John Graham, a public policy expert who researches the future of automobiles at Indiana University.
"This bill responds to what was a fundamental misunderstanding about how easy it would be to sell electric vehicles," said Graham. Most Americans, he explained, don't drive more than about 20 or 30 miles a day, so 10 years ago the prevailing theory was people would happily buy electric vehicles to fulfill most of their driving needs.
But it turned out people focus on the longer, though rarer, trips when buying a car. Understandably, no one wants to run out of power on a remote highway, an angst dubbed "range anxiety."
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The Electric Vehicle Freedom Act seeks to relieve this anxiety. It requires that "a driver starting at any point along the Interstate Highway System in the continental United States can drive to any other point along the Interstate Highway System within the continental United States without running out of charging power."
To make this happen, the federal government would subsidize the creation of a nationwide system of charging stations that can power electric vehicles many times faster than home chargers (although, that will depend on the type of car for now). The government would award money to companies that prove they can build and operate the colossal charging network. The price tag is still unknown, but it would undoubtedly be expensive.
A nationwide charging network
Generally, charging electric vehicles is much easier than gassing up cars. Unlike gas-powered vehicles, most electric cars are "filled up" while plugged in at home. Between 90 to 95 percent of charging is done at home, explained Willett Kempton, who researches electrical vehicle adoption at the University of Delaware.
So, it's unlikely that a nationwide system of electric vehicle charging stations will need to match the some 111,000 gas stations around the country today. Electric vehicle drivers often have full tanks when they leave their house. (Though, the bill says between 106,000 and 138,000 stations might eventually be needed to meet consumer demand.)
Still, to erase range anxiety on road trips, "we need a tremendous amount more charging stations," said Kempton.
Where, exactly, might they go? One good place for charging stations would be at the state rest stops that already exist along well-trafficked highways, suggested Graham. That's because an electric vehicle with fast-charging capabilities (right now, this doesn't always come standard) can take at minimum 30 minutes to get a considerable amount of miles. Electric vehicles not equipped with fast charging capabilities can take hours to fully charge. It's not going to be a five-minute operation, like at a gas station. (The bill anticipates electric cars with faster-charging capabilities in the future and requires charging times to incrementally speed up).
"You maybe get a drink, maybe get a sandwich — it's a stop," said Kempton. This could work well, because folks often take 30-minute stops on road trips anyways, he added.
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A massive rest stop along Interstate 95, the Delaware House Travel Plaza, is a superb example. The large, indoor stop offers a number of food options (though many aren't too healthy), and critically, a couple charging stations. The state paid to put them in, and the concessionaire running the businesses inside pays for the electricity. "It's not a crazy idea for concessions to pay for electricity," noted Kempton, as a travel stop naturally invites people inside to buy a cup of Starbucks and a sandwich. Right now, there's no standard rate to charge electric cars at public stations, with operators setting their own prices as they see fit.
There's also a Tesla Supercharger station at this Delaware stop — though it only charges Teslas. Tesla famously offers free supercharging for some of its customers (although CEO Elon Musk has said this isn't a sustainable practice). Importantly, the Electric Vehicle Freedom Act won't fund any charging station that can only power up vehicles from a particular manufacturer, like Tesla. The aim is to allow anyone to charge whatever electric vehicle they're driving, similar to standardized fuel pumps for gas cars.
The federal government, through this bill, can ensure that chargers have interoperability, so chargers will be compatible with a diversity of cars. "That's where government traditionally has played a role," said Michael Kintner-Meyer, an energy and economics analyst at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
"The electric vehicle is coming."
Traditional gas stations along interstates, too, could gradually adopt — and perhaps one day completely transition to — electric vehicle charging stations. "In concept, an 'electric gas station' could look no different from a gas station today," said Matthias Preindl, who researches electric vehicles and batteries at Columbia University.
The only big difference, Preindl noted, would be the time spent at these stations, just like charging at a rest stop. "Those [electric] gas stations could offer services and entertainment as part of their offerings," he said. "You could have lunch and coffee."
It is possible to cut down charging times from 30 minutes for a full charge down to the 10-minute range, or less, by using chargers capable of pumping electricity at a much higher rate of energy, known as kilowatt-hours (kWh) — along with batteries that can handle that speedy juicing. But don't expect to charge that quickly. "It's not technically practical," said the University of Delaware's Kempton. That would require chargers in the 300 kWh range, which would be a huge load on the electrical utilities that need to provide that energy, especially if you have many vehicles charging at the same time. (For reference, a typical house runs on 1.5 kWh.)
Electric charging stations should aim for pumping out electricity at the 50 kWh to 100 kWh range, said Kempton. This will still put a load on the electrical systems providing this energy, but it will be "tolerable," he said.
Perhaps the biggest question of all, however, is who will own the charging stations. "The U.S. won’t socialize recharging forever," said Indiana University's Graham, just like the federal government doesn't run gas stations today. But the bill requires that the government choose which companies it will give taxpayer money to become creators, suppliers, and managers of hundreds of thousands of charging stations. The government must pick who will succeed in a major, transformative, and likely hugely lucrative project. "That's an uncomfortable process," said Graham.
The good news is the bill requires research from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences to best determine how to pay for the charging stations, and how to ally the government with private companies (like gas stations that could provide this "electric fuel"). This transportation research group is known for its objective, sound judgment.
"That's a really powerful way to get advice," said Joseph Schofer, a transportation engineer at Northwestern University. "That’s a good sign."
In our hyperpolarized Congress, it's unknown if this bill might one day succeed, especially given the Trump administration's opposition to subsidizing electric vehicles. It's telling that the bill doesn't have a Republican cosponsor. Still, Schofer is hopeful.
"This might be a bill that people can agree on because it's relatively benign," said Schofer. "It's good for the environment, employment, and equity."
To boost electric vehicle adoption, it's almost imperative a charging bill like this works. As the last decade proved, you can't have electrical vehicles without charging stations in distant and remote places. "We need both," said Columbia's Preindl.
Electric vehicles are a superb way to get people interested in slashing carbon emissions through electrification. (The bill plans for this energy to come from renewable energy sources — though some of this energy will almost certainly come from increasingly dominant natural gas. Solar, wind, and geothermal are on the rise, but only provide around 9 percent of the nation's electricity today.)
"Transportation is leading," said the PNNL's Kintner-Meyer. "It’s sexier to see a Tesla running down the road than seeing someone replace a gas furnace in a high-rise building."
"We are already on a path towards electrifying the transportation sector," said Preindl. "The electric vehicle is coming." While electric vehicles may be popular in California, there's a long way to go across the country.
EVs come with a long list of merits. It's a smoother drive. You don't need to pay for oil changes. It's quieter. You do most of your refueling at home. And you're not contributing nearly as much to civilization's still-rising carbon emissions.
"Once you’ve driven electric, you don’t want to go back," said Delaware's Kempton.
