Some thoughts that are entirely my own, informed by my profession but expressly without any authority or non-public policy awareness from my current employment:
One of the as-yet-unknowns in the conversion to electric vehicles is how road construction and maintenance will be funded. Presently, the Highway Trust Fund gets its money from federal fuel taxes, and most states get their matching funds and their maintenance funds from state fuel taxes. One reason EV's have been cheaper is that people are not paying motor fuel taxes, but that is not a sustainable situation. Expect a mileage-based tax. I wouldn't mind that as a replacement, because motor fuel taxes are mileage-based. My fear is that it will be in addition, and the relative amounts manipulated to punish people for doing whatever is perceived at the time as the wrong thing.
Highway funding is a state-administered federal-aid program, meaning that states spend the money and the federal government reimburses them according to authorization formulas and decisions of what the federal participation can be for any given project. The Highway Trust Fund generally does not pay for maintenance or for the day-to-day costs of operations (with some exceptions).
The notion that we must be 100% this or that seems to me impractical. For those living in dense suburban areas (dense enough that most trips are measured in tens of miles or less, but not so dense that owning a car is otherwise impractical), EV's are quite practical at present. The charging stations usually run at night when other electric appliances are typically not running as much, and so the present impact on the grid isn't so much about capacity as about duty cycle and daily variation. As EV use scales up, this gets much more complicated, but we will surely find out given the present popularity of EV's for suburban local driving (and EV production is at capacity and backlogged, so the market is actively expressing an opinion on the matter).
The sweet spot for EV technology is for local vehicles that are never very far from charging stations, and that can be fully charged overnight, and that have a lot of speed variability to maximize the effects of regenerative braking and minimize the effects aerodynamic drag per mile driven. This is a
large group and constituency, and the source of much of the vehicle-borne emissions, particularly in cities. It seems to me that conversions to EVs in that constituency will cross the Pareto Front: The 20% that attains 80% of the potential benefits. And the market will find that equilibrium, it seems to me, without governmental help.
One point about the cost of electricity for EV's, both in terms of generation and delivery: If demand increases faster than supply, the cost will go up. And so far, demand growth exceeding capacity growth for EV charging is the only likely outcome until we find better ways of generating and delivering electricity at all scales.
Nobody in the freight business cares about EV operation unless it will reduce costs, and they will keep track of those costs in far more detail and also more holistically than most of us. The jury is still out on the long-term cost of EV ownership, even without considering the cost of propulsion. Most around here who are buying non-hybrid EV's have the wherewithal to buy them new and trade them in frequently because they like the features, performance, and image. I rather doubt they are keeping track of dollar costs with any less degree of self-delusion as a GMC owner. I suspect a lot of EVs with depleted batteries will become cheap, but the question will be whether batteries and major electronic components will be available to sustain them in the aftermarket. Until that works itself out, marginal communities that depend on older used cars and their own ability to maintain them will not be nearly as well served by the conversion. What they are expected to do in response to that greater difficulty is subject to its own political discourse (to put it mildly). Local delivery trucks are probably the only freight-moving sector that will benefit materially from the EV conversion--they will probably wear out in all other dimensions before the batteries lose their recharging capacity.
Where there is a bigger policy question at present is in the safety arena. It is commonly accepted at the policy level that the only way traffic fatalities will reach zero (which is the current
stated goal at the federal level) will be to remove drivers' hands from steering wheels. That is going to be a much more difficult problem for us to solve with our coaches. My concern isn't that the government will mandate it, but that insurance companies will (severely) punish those whose vehicles require human operation. It would be a lot more difficult to retrofit Level 5 vehicle automation in a GMC than to convert it to EV operation. But I think we still have a couple of decades, even assuming that driverless vehicles will be as universally safe as their proponents imagine, which to some extent flies in the face of traffic theory, particularly as traffic density continues to increase. I suspect the freight industry is more giddy about the future or automated trucks than it is about EV trucks.
All of this overlays the standing belief among many at the policy level that roads attract congestion, and therefore are bad for quality of life. The likely outcome of that is increased congestion. We saw a reduction recently as many people started working from home during the pandemic, but I suspect that trend is stable or reversing now and we are already back on the congestion-growth trajectory in places that have reasonable economic growth. Meaning: We hope congestion continues to increase, because the alternative will mean economic hard times precluding the need for trips in the first place. (I have removed a slide from a presentation that merely stated--to roadway operators--that "congestion is the enemy".)
You'll pardon me if I do not engage any resulting debate about whether these trends and policy positions are good or bad. I'm not yet retired
Rock "not his real name" Dummy
