7 days in and sober January has been a raging success for the club soda industry. I’m not sure how much water is officially too much, but I am there. Strange though this may sound, every morning I wake up feeling worse than at any point in 2021 used and I’m discovering that people have a lot of new phrases to describe me: “cheap date”, “boring”, “lots of typos” and “a little intense, even for you.” That said, I did eat two bowls of Oreo cookie dough ice cream last night guilt free so maybe the trade off has been worth it thus far. For those of you on the sober January journey with me, you know that saying you’ll do something is MUCH harder than actually doing it. Which brings me to today’s topic.
On December 8th, the White House published this order defining the net zero supply chain events for the federal government.
The President’s executive order directs the federal government to use its scale and procurement power to achieve five ambitious goals:
100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity (CFE) by 2030, at least half of which will be locally supplied clean energy to meet 24/7 demand;
100 percent zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) acquisitions by 2035, including 100 percent zero-emission light-duty vehicle acquisitions by 2027;
Net-zero emissions from federal procurement no later than 2050, including a Buy Clean policy to promote use of construction materials with lower embodied emissions;
A net-zero emissions building portfolio by 2045, including a 50 percent emissions reduction by 2032; and
Net-zero emissions from overall federal operations by 2050, including a 65 percent emissions reduction by 2030.
And just to really, show how series they are, they came up with pillars, because everyone knows that when a company comes up with a vision statement with pillars in response to a major F up, things get better, right?!
Achieving climate resilient infrastructure and operations;
Building a climate- and sustainability-focused workforce;
Advancing environmental justice and equity;
Prioritizing the purchase of sustainable products, such as products without added perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); and
Accelerating progress through domestic and international partnerships.
Sounds easy. I’m visualizing electric tanks and the supply chain logistics around the length of that charging cable.
The Biden Administration also issued an executive order on vehicle sales by 2030, with half of the vehicles required to be electric or hybrid. GM is well on their way, of course, selling 26 EVs including 1 electric Hummer in Q4 (and though you might think that is a typo, it is not). The quarter was so good it prompted Elon to tweet this:
His troll game is so strong. I love it.
Of the wording from the latter executive order, this is what got me: Engage with California and other states leading the way in reducing vehicle emissions.
California? The same California with the highest electricity prices in the nation? The same one that lost a congressional seat in 2021 due to shrinking population? I saw this article this week from Ronald Stein from “A committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.” It’s worth thinking about while we think about what the energy transition really means.
#hottakeoftheday
With more than forty percent of the EV’s in America being in California at the end of 2020, the EV popularity in California has gotten President Biden so excited to want the rest of the country to follow California’s lead that Biden issued a new executive order that pushes for half of all new cars sold in America by 2030 to be electric vehicles.
Even with the great California year-round weather, the states’ EV user’s experiences do not bode well for projected EV sales in America as the states’ EV users may be sending a caution-to-the-wind (no pun intended) message to America that the EV usage in the state reflects very conservative notices to future EV owners. A few reasons why Californians may be sending the wrong message to America are:
1. The limited usage of the EV’s of about 5,000 miles per year is a reflection that the EV is a second vehicle, for those that can afford them, and not the family workhorse vehicle.
2. The primary owners of EV’s are the highly educated and financially well off, and not representative of the majority.
3. EV owner incomes rank among the highest in the country which may be a reflection of home owners that have easier access to charging their EV from their multi-car garages, or for those folks living in new apartments that may have access to more convenient EV charging capabilities. Most car owners park in the street.
4. According to ValuePenguin insurance, because electric vehicles cost more outright and are more expensive to repair, the average car insurance for an electric vehicle is about 23 percent more expensive than the cost for the equivalent combustion model.
5. The ethnicity of Tesla owner’s skews toward Caucasians, at 87 percent. Owners who identify with Hispanic ethnicity make up 8 percent of Tesla owners, leaving 5 percent to other ethnicities.
6. From that limited elite ownership group, there is a growing percentage of those California EV users that are switching back to gasoline cars, which is sending a message that may further deflate EV growth projections.
EVs are still a luxury product that attract the Benz and Beemer crowd, not low- and middle-income consumers. The average household income for EV buyers is about $140,000. That’s roughly nearly twice the US median, which is about $63,000.
Here are a few examples of inclement weather conditions, that will most likely never occur in the idyllic year-round weather of sunny California’s EV “capital” of America:
· Imagine Florida with a hurricane coming toward Miami. The Governor orders an evacuation. All cars head north. They all need to be charged in Jacksonville. How does that work? If all cars were electric, and were caught up in a three-hour traffic jam with dead batteries, then what? Not to mention that there is virtually no heating or air conditioning in an electric vehicle because of high battery consumption.
· If you get stuck on the road all night, no battery, no heating, no windshield wipers, no radio, no GPS (all these drain the batteries), all you can do is try calling 911 to take women and children to safety. But they cannot come to help you because all roads are blocked, and they will probably require all police cars will be electric also. When the roads become unblocked no one can move! Their batteries are dead.
· How do you charge thousands of cars in the traffic jam? Same problem during summer vacation departures with miles of traffic jams. There would be virtually no air conditioning in an electric vehicle. It would drain the batteries quickly. Where is this electricity going to come from? Today's grid barely handles users' needs.
· Frigid driving conditions: Did you know that 17 percent of car crashes in the United States happen in winter conditions? EV batteries must work harder in the cold, which is why they drain quickly in extreme temperatures. Low temperatures, such as 40 degrees or below, can decrease the driving range for EVs by 40 percent.
As Pew Research reported in June, “In each of the past three years, EVs accounted for about 2% of the U.S. new-car market.” The reasons why EVs aren’t grabbing consumers by the tailpipe are many, but the main ones are affordability, charging and range functionality, and the possible exposure to inclement weather.
Another challenge for the EV growth is the EV charging dependence on intermittent electricity generated from breezes and sunshine. Adding EV charging loads onto the grid that is becoming more unstable is like putting salt in the wound. Power outages are now commonplace in California and Texas with more to follow throughout the nation as we adjust to a life dependent upon the time of day and the weather.
Amid tougher emissions regulations worldwide, established automakers are racing to add more EVs to their lineup, but until the current elite owners can demonstrate to the middle-income and those on fixed incomes that their EV’s are their primary family workhorse vehicles, the less fortunate will most likely remain reluctant to buy into the EV evolution.
Growing the supply chain for EV’s without a corresponding growth in demand, could be an economic disaster in the works.
Right on brother! Speak more loudly😘
This is really good stuff. Thanks DRW