The number of electric vehicles in Arizona has tripled in the last year-and-a-half. But, the number of charging stations hasn’t kept up.
Despite the state and federal government putting hundreds of millions of dollars into efforts to catch up, Steven Polzin, a research professor at Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, says we haven’t reached the tipping point on EVs yet. Polzin was also one of the top researchers for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Polzin joined The Show to discuss how even though the number of EVs on the road is going up, they’re still a small percentage of all of the cars on the road.
Full conversation
STEVE POLZIN: There's still a single digit share of the vehicles on the road, a bigger share of new sales, but a modest share of vehicles on the road, you know, a normal vehicle has about a 17-year life. So it takes a while for the fleet to turn over.
GILGER: Yeah, OK. So that makes a lot of sense. But there's been such a push both federally and at the state level to respond to this, to grow that industry, right, the infrastructure so that more people can buy and use EVs especially for things like road trips, like having chargers along highways in the state, things like that, those plans are in place, but they're a few years out.
I want to talk about how these things kind of balance out. Like you've got more people buying EVs now, a lot of the infrastructure coming but not here yet. What comes first, I guess like is this a chicken and egg kind of situation?
POLZIN: There's a lot of elements to it. Initially, when folks first started buying EVs, it tended to be early adopters that, you know, looked at it as wanting the new next best hot thing or experimental.
Interestingly, early on, the folks that bought them often added it as an additional vehicle to a fleet, not as a replacement for an existing vehicle. So it was, you know a toy and an experiment and, and some people used it as as kind of moral signaling their commitment to the environment, etcetera.
And since then, it started to penetrate different markets and different segments of the market. Oftentimes the early owners were highly dependent, about 85% of the charging takes place at the home and they use it as a car for urban activities.
And if they're taking a long road trip, they're much more likely to use a different vehicle.
But obviously now some people are wanting to be more dependent on electric vehicles and use them for long distance travel. And then the issue of charging and recharging becomes a concern for him.
And all of the survey work that's been done is has historically shown that that charging range and recharge capability are kind of two of the big things that have influenced, you know, the willingness to purchase electric vehicles. That and of course, price is the other one that, that were kind of the top considerations in people's minds.
GILGER: Yeah, so, so we're kind of beyond the point of early adapters, but it seems like we are not at any kind of critical mass yet although.
POLZIN: I think we're past early adapters, we're probably still highly concentrated in higher income, single family home folks with an ability to recharge it at home and or at a workplace.
GILGER: Yeah. So where is then, Steve, the tipping point? Like when do we see electric vehicles become the norm or do you expect it to kind of go back before it goes forward?
POLZIN: Well, it's going to be a lengthy process. I was just looking at some data today and, you know, historically, people had hoped to have 50% of new sales by 2030 as being electric vehicles.
Now people are pushing that number down in the 30% range and of course, these are all guestimates and they're anticipating or speculating on whether or not the new administration will remove the subsidies, the rebate subsidies or, or slow down the push on, on the electrification expansion.
It is important to realize that the vast majority of electrification is either individuals or private companies. There's certainly some, you know, significant dollars that the federal government's putting in place through the states to, to build a charging network. But that will be relatively modest in, in the total share of charging capacity that exists.
GILGER: OK. So then it sounds like it's, it's a ways off, right?
POLZIN: It's going to be a ways off, absolutely.
GILGER: And so much of this as you're getting at there has to do with politics who's ending up in the White House. And, the Biden administration has been very progressive in trying to put in those subsidies, boost this industry and make sure that transition happens as quickly as it can.
Is the industry going to be hesitant or changing its tune based on what may happen in a potential Trump administration?
POLZIN: Well, they've already been changing their tune pretty dramatically over the past, oh probably two years based on market reaction. Several manufacturers have postponed and slowed their commitments to new models because the market hasn't responded as aggressively as they had hoped.
There's a number of other things that are kind of occurring simultaneously. Obviously, we're seeing a lot more model choices. We're moving into the mid- and lower-range vehicle categories. The other thing is the prices have come down, and of course that helps as well.
GILGER: Yeah, yeah. So it sounds like it's going to be a longer road than many had hoped. But, but it's jumped the shark. The industry is heading in this direction.
POLZIN: Yep. That's correct. They'll respond to the market as well and if the market sustains itself or picks up, they'll, they'll ramp up according.
GILGER: I want to ask you about another thing that keeps popping up in this EV realm right now in the conversation is that, that consumers seem to be becoming more skeptical that EVs are actually the answer to fixing climate change. Like there's lots of talk about emissions empowering them and waste in the batteries. That kind of thing.
Does that kind of confusion play a role here in how fast or how quickly or if at all this kind of takes over?
POLZIN: Not really because the vast majority of people don't really understand the significance of electric vehicles in terms of climate. People perceive them as, as being very climate friendly and in general, they, they are at least they can be, obviously, it depends how the power that, that powers them is generated.
Then the other thing is that, you know, a lot of the energy emissions come from the heavier vehicles and, and of course, those are moving to electric as well, particularly the mid-sized commercial vehicles, the production of the vehicles is energy intensive and it uses rare metals, etc.
Most of the research says it takes about a year to a year and a half worth of use of the vehicle to kind of amortize just the difference in the energy intensiveness of the construction and disposal of the electric vehicle relative to an internal combustion engine.
So, so they do start out on a, on a back leg, so to speak, because they, they do have more carbon emissions associated with production and disposal.
